Though Beenox’s output of Spidey titles was steady between 2010 and 2014, the quality of each was less so, especially in the shadow of Treyarch’s Spider-Man 2, which remains a benchmark for Spider-Man games still to this day. With Peter Parker making his big comeback this month, however, I figured it would be an apt time to chat with Beenox’s co-head Thomas Wilson to look back on the past, present, and future of Spider-Man’s ever changing relationship with interactive entertainment, and the studio’s own history with the character in particular. 

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (2010)

Shattered Dimensions was Beenox’s first real Spider-Man title, following its successful ports of old games like Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. Praised for its ambitious, fan servicing plot and confident vision, Shattered Dimensions was a very strong start for Beenox, so it’s no surprise that it also happens to be Wilson’s personal favourite too.

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“At the time, the ask was to rejuvenate the franchise with something that would be new and innovative, so Activision had given us carte blanche to start brainstorming ideas inspired by the comic books, not the movies. So we started to look for anything that hadn’t been seen in a game before. There had already been a few Spider-Man games out there, but our Senior Producer was a huge comic book fan and he started talking about Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man Noir, and so on, who I’d never heard of before, and so we came up with this idea of playing multiple Spider-Men within the multiverse. From there, we could create four different universes with their own art styles and a Megaman structure where players fought a boss per level, which we thought was a nice twist on the Spider-Man open world tradition.”

“Shattered Dimensions was the game we had the most fun creating. It was the most chaotic development, but this idea of coming up with four distinctive art directions injected a lot of personality into the level design and boss battles. I wish we could have done a Shattered Dimensions 2, as there’s so much content to draw inspiration from in the comics. Now, of course, the industry has evolved, but after the first game I wish we could have jumped right into the sequel, because I loved the formula and approach we had.” 

Spider-Man: Edge of Time (2011)

After the success of Shattered Dimensions, Beenox was in the unfortunate position of attempting to follow up on struck gold with limited resources. Edge of Time took place in two different Spider-Man universes, down from Shattered Dimension’s four, as the Amazing Spider-Man worked with Spider-Man 2099 to stop a powerful foe that threatened them both. Many found Edge of Time to be strangely limited and repetitive compared to the previous game, but Wilson explains that Beenox had been under a lot of pressure. 

“The big difference with Edge of Time is that we had very little development time, and I guess that’s the reason why some of the fans were potentially disappointed that it was half of what Shattered Dimensions had been. It was a situation where a game needed to be released quickly, so the decision was made to focus exclusively on Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099, as we knew that it was a storyline that we’d seen in the comic books.” 

“There was this cause and effect gameplay idea where what you were doing in the Amazing Spider-Man time period would affect what was going on the future, so there was a few situations where we had a picture-in-picture experience where a villain was killing Spider-Man 2099 and you had to defeat him in the other timeline first. It was definitely a smaller game, though, and I think that’s where it really fell short.”

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

With two original Spidey titles to its name, Beenox was eventually put to work by Activision on a movie tie-in game to The Amazing Spider-Man reboot starring Andrew Garfield. It would mark the first time in a long time that players could get back to liberally swinging around Manhattan as the webhead in a video game, and Wilson welcomed the challenge to return the character to an open-world after his brief stint with linearity. 

“We worked closely with Marvel and Sony to understand what their vision for this reboot was, and what we could do to come up with something that was tied to the movie. So we returned to Manhattan and, using our technology, we basically created a city editor that let our artists build the city from scratch. We went on location and took a lot of pictures to get references; we’re not New Yorkers, so we wanted to make sure that we created a city that was close enough to the real thing.”

“This was right around the time developers were no longer just recreating the movie’s story in a tie-in game. The tendency was to make a game inspired by the movie but not bound to the same narrative, so from that point on we had quite a lot of freedom to look for things that we thought would make sense within the world of the Amazing Spider-Man. It’s a process that required us to talk to Marvel’s experts and to Sony to explain our intentions, but they felt pretty good about our approach and so from there it’s just a matter of working with writers to validate that with Marvel.”

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

As Garfield’s nascent franchise received a hastily made sequel, so too did Beenox’s movie tie-in series. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was probably the studio’s least well received Spider-Man game of the four, especially as this was Spidey’s first appearance on current-gen consoles, but looked about as technically proficient as an Xbox 360 launch title. Wilson readily admits that it was not the game he’d hope to have finished Beenox’s journey with Spider-Man on. 

“There was another movie coming, and we tried to make improvements on the game on a whole bunch of fronts. The graphical fidelity of the city, the combat, adding stealth missions, and so on… but I made one of the worst design decisions of my entire career in that game!” 

“We created what we called the ‘Hero or Menace’ system, which was a good idea on paper, where Spider-Man had a reputation meter that went up or down depending on whether the player was taking care of crime or not, but we ran out of varied mission design, so it just felt repetitive and penalising. That hurt us in the reviews when the game came out, and I apologise for that! Sometimes you think something is good, but by the time you realise it isn’t, it’s way too late in development to remove it, so we just tried refining it as much as we could before release.” 

Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018)

So, now that the property is off his and Beenox’s hands, what does Wilson make of Insomniac’s Spider-Man game, and of the evolved superhero genre at large? You won’t be too surprised to hear he’s just as full of praise for the studio as everyone else is right now. 

“I think Insomniac taking over the reins of Spider-Man is great. I’m a huge fan of their games and I’ve been playing them for a long time, so I was watching closely when I found out they were developing it. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but I’m look forward to trying it out. What I’ve seen so far looks great!” 

“I will say it brings back nostalgia, especially as in their case they’ve had like five years of development to make the game. I only wish we had five years on any one of the Spider-Man games we made! Superheroes are great characters to be making games for, and working on them is a lot of fun. To me, it doesn’t matter how the characters evolve in the theaters, because you can pretty much dive into the content that each movie offers to make a game of your choice.” 

From superheroes to super soldiers

At the moment, Wilson and the rest of Beenox are hard at work helping Treyarch bring Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (opens in new tab) to PC, which he calls a “AAA PC title with all the bells and whistles that involves”, but the studio’s co-head promises big things from the studio in the long term. 

“I can’t really talk about it, but all I can say is that what’s coming is super exciting. We have a great future in front of us, and Activision is a big family so there’s a lot of opportunity to work on some very cool titles. You just look back to our first title, a tie-in game to Bee Movie, and you can see it’s been quite a journey for the past 13 years. I feel very privileged to be a part of it all.” 

For more vigilante antics, check out our run down of the best superhero movies (opens in new tab) of all time, and count how many Spideys make the cut. 

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It’s the only young adult superhero franchise in the market, and director Marc Webb once again capitalises on the game charms of young stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, dishing out adorable romance in equal measure with web-slinging action. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 feels, in a word, youthful, with all the goofy exuberance and dubious judgement that implies. 

Part and parcel with the teenage lens comes an obsession with parents and what they hand down to their unsuspecting kids. Peter (Garfield) has settled into his Spidey suit but is still haunted by unanswered questions about his parents, who abandoned him in childhood for shadowy reasons unknown. Haunting him too is the ghost of Gwen Stacy’s (Stone) late father, who used his dying breath to warn Peter away from his daughter; this paves the way for some thorny but refreshingly angst-light relationship troubles. 

And then there’s Dane DeHaan’s Harry Osborn, a childhood friend of Peter’s who returns to New York just in time to be handed a poisoned chalice by dying daddy dearest Norman (a malevolent Chris Cooper). Garfield and DeHaan being two of the most compelling actors of their generation, they’re unsurprisingly effective together, and Peter and Harry’s reunion gives the former a welcome edge of normality. Unlike Tobey Maguire’s Peter, there’s no sense here of his attempting to live a normal life post-high school – Spider-Man seems to interact with the real world more than Peter Parker does. 

The bad guys are a clear strong suit in contrast to Webb’s first film; both Harry and Jamie Foxx’s Max Dillon are villains who only become so because the world has so entirely mistreated them. DeHaan plays Harry like a twitchy, anguished coiled spring, every movement and sentence wound tight – it’s a compelling contrast to Garfield’s energy, all loose limbs and heart-on-sleeve emotion.

There’s real poignancy to Max, too, a nerdy, perpetually overlooked electrical engineer with no friends or family (think Red Dwarf’s Duane Dibley, only doomed) whose obsession with Spider-Man turns nasty after a workplace accident sees him transform into the super-powered, super-pissed Electro. (Even by the standards of evil corporate offices, Oscorp is a health and safety nightmare.) 

But it’s hard to shake the sense, given the narrow production window, that the script was rushed into production in less-than-complete form – the fact that Shailene Woodley was cast, filmed and later cut as Mary Jane speaks volumes. Electro becomes superfluous as the increasingly unstable Harry takes centre-stage, and when DeHaan is on screen it’s impossible to look anywhere else. Another reworking of the script could have pared the focus right down to Peter, Harry, Gwen and Oscorp, and in turn cut down the baggy running time by 20 minutes. 

But the intention is clear – Sony want their own expanded universe to rival Marvel, since Spidey joining the Avengers will remain the stuff of Garfield and other fans’ dreams. Paul Giamatti’s Rhino and Felicity Jones’s Felicia Hardy are given glorified cameos clearly designed to pay off down the line, in ASM3 or ASM4 or the already-promised Sinister Six spinoff. 

What all this means is that the film often seems more focused on franchise-building than storytelling, nowhere more so than in its final few scenes. With Spidey’s quippy wisecracking turned up to 11, Webb seems committed to comedy above all – it’s hard to think of another series that has so effectively used stuntwork as slapstick – which makes for some jarring segues back into darker material. 

Stone’s Gwen remains a breath of fresh air for women in comic book movies; she has smarts and spirit and agency without needing to be a quip-slinging badass, and her intuitive chemistry with Garfield remains as much of a joy to watch as it was in 2012. It’s only when the script actively tries for affecting that it falters, bordering on mawkish in some moments with Sally Field’s Aunt May in particular. 

Garfield’s raw and heartfelt performance helps to sell the cheese, but the clunky foreshadowing is harder to swallow – a third act gut punch is telegraphed so blatantly and repeatedly that by the time it arrives, half the impact is gone.

The Verdict

3

3 out of 5

the amazing spider-man 2

Bright, punchy, and earnest, Webb’s affable sequel is tough to dislike despite its tonal whiplash and clumsy script. Redeemed by Garfield, Stone and DeHaan’s powerhouse trio.

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Big news for Spider-Man fans this morning, with the announcement that Marc Webb has officially signed on to direct The Amazing Spider-Man 3 .

Sony has confirmed that Webb will return to complete the third in his trilogy of Spidey films, with Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Jeff Pinkner already having written a script.

The studio is planning to get production underway this autumn, ahead of a proposed UK release date of 27 May 2016.

Meanwhile, Variety reports that Sony’s plan for the Spider-Man franchise is even more ambitious than we had first suspected, with the studio aiming to release a Spidey movie every year.

This plan will accommodate the recently confirmed Venom and Sinister Six movies, as well as the main strand of Spider-Man stories, with The Amazing Spider-Man 3 expected to be the first release in this new schedule.

Whether or not viewers have an appetite for that much web-slinging remains to be seen… In the meantime, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will open in the UK on 18 April 2014.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has released a new still online, featuring Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy hard at work at her desk.

The new image shows Stacy at her OsCorp job, which will presumably see her path crossing rather frequently with Harry Osborn, Dane DeHaan’s character in the new film.

As previous promotional material has already told us, Osborn Jr. looks set to make the transformation into the Green Goblin at some point in the new film, a development that doesn’t bode well for Gwen.

Emma Stone has taken something of a back seat in the publicity push so far, what with all the new villains to be introduced, so it’s nice to get a reminder that her dynamic with Andrew Garfield was one of the main pleasures of the first film.

Directed by Marc Webb and co-starring Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti and Chris Cooper, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will open in the UK on 18 April 2014.

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After months of rumours, Sony has finally confirmed that its Spider-Man universe will be extended by standalone films for both Venom and the Sinister Six.

The studio has assembled a kind of Spider-Man brain trust to bring this vision to reality, with Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon and Drew Goddard all set to work on the new films.

As well as writing The Amazing Spider-Man 3 (which Sony hopes Marc Webb will return to direct) for 2016, Kurtzman and Orci will team up with Solomon to write the screenplay for Venom , which Kurtzman will also direct.

Goddard will then pick up the strands of the various villains introduced by the main series and will write a script for The Sinister Six , which he is also slated to direct.

“The Spider-Man film franchise is one of our studio’s greatest assets,” said Columbia President Doug Belgrad. “We are thrilled with the creative team we have assembled to delve more deeply into the world.”

Hugely exciting news then, with the wealth of viral teaser and hints that have been released over the past few weeks clearly having been leading to this announcement.

It will also throw a whole new light on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 when it arrives next year, which will no doubt contain a number of pointers as to how the franchise will eventually expand. Lots to watch out for when that film opens in the UK on 18 April 2014.

To see Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, and Marc Webb provide a world exclusive trailer breakdown for your friendly neighbourhood Total Film , check out the video below.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has released a new piece of viral marketing online that appears to tease the presence of a whole new raft of villains that our hero may have to face.

The info can be found in a faux news article on the Daily Bugle website that reads as follows:

“Despite the assault on Oscorp Tower two weeks ago and the revelation that disgruntled Oscorp employee, Dr. Curt Connors, was responsible for the attack, Oscorp’s stock has climbed four points.

“Oscorp spokesman Douglas Menken provided some details from the meeting, including that the construction on the prototype alternative energy power plant, complete with hydroelectric tower, is on schedule for completion within the next year.

“Other highlights included a preview of a flight harness for the military and significant advancements in robotics by the head of the engineering division, Spencer Smythe.”

Reading between the lines, we’d say that flight harness could be a Vulture tease, while the mention of a hydroelectric tower may well be a reference to Hydro-Man, a villain capable of manipulating water.

More explicit however is the mention of Spencer Smythe, known to fans of the comics as the inventor of the Spider-Slayers, a type of robot specifically designed to take down the wall-crawler.

It seems unlikely that any of those villains will appear in the next film, which already boasts several antagonists, but this might be a useful indicator of what to expect further down the track.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in the UK on 18 April 2014.

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Chris Cooper is one of several new cast members to be joining the ensemble for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 , and is already looking forward to how his character might develop further down the track.

Cooper will be playing Norman Osborn, best known to fans of the comic-books and the Sam Raimi trilogy as the alter-ego of The Green Goblin, but is unlikely to be in full-on villain mode, thanks to the involvement of Jamie Foxx’s Electro.

“This is an introduction to Norman Osborn,” says Cooper of his role in the second film, “and, apparently, this leads to better things in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 .”

“I think it’s fair to say that he’s on his last legs,” continues Cooper, “and I don’t know if I can say anything more.”

Osborn was mentioned in the first film as a man struggling with severe ill health, which would seem to pave the way for drastic measures to be taken… drastic measures that could well speed his transformation into the Goblin, perhaps?

In the meantime, he’ll be appearing in the second film alongside the likes of Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Dane DeHaan. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will open in the UK on 18 April 2014.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has already got more potential antagonists than you could shake a stick at, but could Felicity Jones be providing yet another thorn in Spidey’s side in the upcoming sequel?

It has yet to be confirmed who Jones will be playing in the new film, but ever since her casting, persistent rumours have linked her to the part of Felicia Hardy, otherwise known as the slinky Black Cat.

Jones was recently asked point-blank by Flicks And The City (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) whether she was excited about playing Black Cat, and her reaction to the question wasn’t exactly a masterclass in quashing speculation…

“Um, well, uh, possibly,” said Jones, when faced with the question. “I don’t know. Yeah, I kind of – it’s um… Yeah, if that happens, that would be wonderful.”

Perhaps Jones hasn’t been briefed on the ultra-secret non-disclosure policy that generally comes with superhero movies, or perhaps she was disarmed by the directness of the question. While it’s obviously not an official confirmation, we’d say it’s starting to look like a pretty safe bet…

That said, with Electro and Rhino already on villain duties, and Norman and Harry Osborne also involved in proceedings, surely her antagonistic streak will be shelved for the newly announced threequel ? Or are we having a full on villain-fest? Time will tell…

Directed by Marc Webb and co-starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will open in the UK on 18 April 2014.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is swinging through production right now, with Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti and Chris Cooper in place as the sequel’s villains. But according to a new report, Colm Feore might be playing a character with huge significance for comic-book fans.

Naturally, speculative spoilers will follow, so if you’re planning to go into Spidey 2 as cold as possible, we’d advise you to stop reading right about… now.

Still here? Then we’ll presume you’re up for some sequel chatter. ComicBookMovie (opens in new tab) has dropped a new report, which claims that Feore will be playing Adrian Toomes, AKA The Vulture.

CBM goes on to say that Feore’s Vulture will join forces with Electro (Foxx), Rhino (Giamatti) and Green Goblin (Cooper), to form the first four members of The Sinister Six, a kind of Avengers-style team-up of Spidey-villains.

As no real details are given on CBM ’s source, and we’ve had no official confirmation, we’re taking this report with hefty pinch of salt.

With Marc Webb already piling on the villains for Part 2, the Sinister Six would seem like a logical extension of that, and having Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker face such a huge threat would help the film stand out in a crowded superhero marketplace.

Also adding to the rumour fuel is the fact that Feore’s character name is yet to be revealed, and the actor does share a visual similarity with the character, with his balding pate and prominent facial features.

Looks like we’ll have wait for more clues in Webb’s tweets…

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in the UK on 18 April 2014.

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A first full synopsis has gone online for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 , with the first concrete plot details revealed about Spidey’s ongoing adventures.

The official press release also confirms Paul Giamatti’s involvement , while Colm Feore has also been added to the cast in an undisclosed role.

“In The Amazing Spider-Man 2 , for Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), life is busy,” begins the official blurb. “Between taking out the bad guys as Spider-Man and spending time with the person he loves, Gwen (Emma Stone), high school graduation can’t come quickly enough.

“Peter hasn’t forgotten about the promise he made to Gwen’s father to protect her by staying away – but that’s a promise he just can’t keep. Things will change for Peter when a new villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), emerges, an old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, and Peter uncovers new clues about his past.”

Directed by Marc Webb and co-starring Shailene Woodley and Sally Field, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will open in the UK on 18 April 2014.

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