Even after escaping some critical wounds as a result of Spider-Man 3 by returning to his horror-comedy roots, director Sam Raimi didnât have to be dragged back to Spideyâs friendly neighborhood for a fourth outing.
Raimi, whoâs wowing audiences with his bravura cinematic scares in the lean, mean and much lower-budgeted Drag Me to Hell, says it didnât take any convincing or arm-twisting to get him to sign on to helm a fourth âSpider-Manâ outing (especially as long as Tobey Maquire was along for the ride).
Although the storyline is still top-secretâand still being writtenâRaimi tells ComingSoon.net/SuperheroHype.com about returning to the wall-crawlerâs world, taking criticism to heart, the lessons learned from returning to semi-guerilla filmmaking, and how with great âSpider-Manâ films comes great responsibility.
CS/SHH!: Was making a fourth âSpider-Manâ film an easy call for you to make? And were you and Tobey Maguire in lockstep on the decision, both eager to do it together?
Sam Raimi: I only wanted to do it with Tobey because my interest is in living the character with Tobey in a deeper way than we ever have lived it before. There comes with the familiarity a knowledge of a lot of the basics. I think itâs really going to allow us to delve deeply into him as a human being, which is really why Iâm into it this time.
CS/SHH!: âSpider-Man 3â received its share of criticism even though it was successful at the box office. Are you taking that into consideration when youâre developing the fourth film?
Raimi: Do I take the criticism into consideration? Yeah, absolutely. All filmmakers want their films to be liked. I shouldnât say that, but I definitely want my films to be liked by the audience. I donât make an artistic type of picture that I can say to myself âEven if this crowd doesnât like it, it stands as a work of art and will be appreciated years later or has meaning without the audience.â I simply am an entertainer and I make films for audience appreciation. When they donât like it, I donât have a leg to stand on. If a critic doesnât like it, itâs like âOh, he hates me,â or itâs bad, they donât like it. Every time I get a bad criticism, I just try not to dwell on it but itâs very upsetting. You really want to please people.
CS/SHH!: What did you particularly take to heart? Like would you go back to a single villain?
Raimi: Iâm still working on âSpider-Man 4.â More properly, the writer is writing the screenplay right now. David Lindsay-Abaire, a New York playwright, is in New York supposedly writing. Weâll see â I gotta call that guy! He should be done with his script in about four weeks, I think. I think Iâd be better prepared to answer that question once Iâve read that script and know what the movie is. I wanted to work in a new way and a new direction. I had just read this great play that David Lyndsay-Abaire had written called âRabbit Holeâ and I just really wanted to work with him on Peter Parker.
CS/SHH!: Was there a significant difference between working on a major franchise and doing a smaller production like âDrag Me to Hellâ?
Raimi: With those âSpider-Manâ pictures, which I love making, thereâs still a lot of responsibility on the directorâs shouldersâand the producers, everyoneâs shouldersâbecause youâre dealing with a character that has been around for fortysome years, is much loved by people throughout the world and people not just have a sense of ownership of Spider-Manârightfully soâthey look up to him as a hero. Generations of people do, so you have to be careful with how that portrayal takes place. You have to have a lot of respect for the ownership of everyone, which they do have over that character. And so I was using the word âresponsibilityâ of the responsibility to present him in a proper light. And thatâs a great job, but itâs much more freeing to take a break from that and work with your own characters in a place where no one has any expectation of them because they donât know them. Youâre really free to do anything you want. So thereâs a lot more freedoms that come with the independent picture âDrag Me to Hell.â
CS/SHH!: Has rediscovering those freedoms got you excited to return to the world of Spider-Man?
Raimi: Iâm really looking forward to it. I feel like Iâve been on vacation and I want to come back. And I feel like Iâve learned a lot, working with the time constraints without all the toys and tools Iâve been granted on the âSpider-Manâ pictures. I had a lot less to work with. I remember often times in this process my assistant director Michael Moore would come up to me and say things like, âSam youâve got an hour left and youâve got eight shots. What do you want to do?â And I would think. âOh my god, weâll just shoot it tomorrow.â And he would say âYouâre not coming here tomorrow â youâre never coming back here, the budget wonât let you come back here. You now have 55 minutes. How are you going to get the shot?â First Iâd panic, and then I would remember the basics are all I ever needed and I would think, âWell, whatâs the point of this scene, whatâs the core of what Iâm after?â Itâs that this character in the story is confronted with this situation, she makes this realization, and thatâs where the scene ends. And I can get that with a close up of my actress and a little bit of a lighting effect. Maybe she was going to come outside and see the sun coming down and I was going to have a crane shot and she was going to realize she didnât have much time. With a simple rose-colored gel and a lamp thatâs being faded up and her coming into a close-up, she can look off into the direction of the light, suggest sheâs seeing the sunset, a little bit of wind with help with the idea of the setting sun and sheâll make a realization in her eyes. At that moment the camera will move in a little bit to underline this realization, a bit of fear will come upon her as she realizes she doesnât have much time as the light is dimming, and she exits frame. With that shot I remembered I can get everything I needed that I thought I needed eight shots to get. And it was invigorating. It never should have been those eight shots anyway.
Spider-Man 4 is scheduled to hit theaters on May 6, 2011, while Drag Me to Hell opens next week, on Friday, May 29th.
Source: Scott Huver