Anghus Houvouras on whether Amy Pascal’s departure from Sony is good for Spider-Man or a disaster…
Sony took it on the chin last year with a slew of scandals that left them bruised and battered. In fact, ‘taking it on the chin’ might be an epic understatement. They got their skull beaten to a bloody pulp before having it severed with a roundhouse kick now known as “The Sony Hack”. Thanks to the repellent comedy The Interview, Sony had their servers violated and their dirty laundry aired. It was the kind of train wreck that you couldn’t look away from. Each subsequent leak provided more sobering insight into the maddening world of studio politics. Amy Pascal, the head of Sony Pictures, came across looking like a hybrid of Anna Wintour and Richard Nixon. With little recourse, she stepped down this week leaving behind an a marginally talented era for Sony.
But really, all anyone cares about is what this means for Spider-Man. Or are you the one person who is just itching to see Angelina Jolie play a way too old version of Cleopatra or a Steve Jobs version of the Social Network?
Spider-Man is what people want to know about. The franchise has also been savaged in recent years with Marc Webb’s two Amazing Spider-Man movies being met with raised eyebrows and questions if Sony leadership is capable of not bungling the film versions of the single most popular super hero in the world. The leaked emails revealed a lot about the incompetence on display, with strange musings about Aunt May spy movies and stalled discussions about loaning the character back to Marvel for use in some Avengers movies.
Now that Amy Pascal has stepped down, is the faltering Spider-Man franchise better off or worse?
It’s a tough question to answer. My initial thought was “Yes”. Pascal and her legion of franchise murderers never seemed comfortable with Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man. The first of the rebooted franchise received praise for its two leads, the charismatic duo of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, but everything surrounding them was called into question. The new mythology introducing Peter Parker’s parents, an uninspired villain walking through the motions of a boilerplate plot, and a story that lacked direction.
Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the validation of all those concerns. The story continued to go nowhere with multiple plots crammed into a movie that barely had time to develop any of the new characters it introduced. From the start the production meandered. First it was announced that Shailene Woodley would be playing Mary Jane Watson. The scenes were shot and eventually cut as were scenes where Peter’s long dead father turns out to be anything but. There was a post credits scene for Amazing Spider-Man which led to nothing in Amazing Spider-Man 2.
I think whether you like the Amazing Spider-Man movies of not, you are probably smart enough to admit how utterly directionless they seem. If there was a plan or a blueprint for the series (which I kind of doubt), they abandoned them.
So the initial thought that, yes, Spider-Man will be better off without Pascal in charge feels right. But right now, we don’t know who is going to replace her. Here’s a quote from the Wall Street Journal:
“If Mr. Lynton (Head of Sony) does choose to promote an internal executive, top candidates would include Tom Rothman, who runs Sony’s TriStar Pictures label and previously had a job nearly identical to Ms. Pascal’s as co-chairman of Twentieth Century Fox; Michael De Luca, head of production at Sony’s Columbia Pictures; and Doug Belgrad, a studio veteran who is currently president of Sony’s motion-picture business”
Not exactly an inspiring vote of confidence. These aren’t the kind of names that scream ‘new movie paradigm’. This is the legion of ‘same old, same old’ that I doubt will have the kind of architectural foresight to create something like Marvel has with their shared universe.
Spider-Man is in a precarious place right now. Sony has a billion dollar baby on their hands if they can just figure out how to make a Spider-Man movie that can break free of the mediocre creative assets that have delivered two painfully average blockbusters.
Maybe the Sony Hack is rock bottom for the studio and this is the start of a long, hard, climb out of the gutter. Perhaps there are blue skies ahead for everyone’s favorite webslinger.
I’m not holding my breath.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.
Listen to the Flickering Myth Podcast’s thoughts on the news of Spider-Man joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe using the player below:
Originally published February 8, 2015. Updated July 3, 2023.
