It was the moment the fans had been waiting for. And boy did it have bite.
Not only had Spider-Man 3 director Sam Raimi made the trip to the San Diego Comic-Con to tease the most anticipated film of 2007, he also cajoled a nearly full complement of its all-star cast—including Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace and Bryce Dallas Howard—to join him onstage to surprise the thousands of eager and overwhelmed comic book fans who’d assembled hoping for any shred of new information from the forthcoming film, he also unveiled the first full-on look at the villain at the heart of the movie, the vicious, fang-faced symbiote Venom, a fan favorite since he was created by superstar artist Todd McFarlane in the early 1990s.
After slyly vamping a bit over not having any finished footage to show the fans, Raimi relented and the crowd was treated to a rough assemblage of footage from the third installment of the popular superhero franchise: there was Maguire as Peter Parker, donning the jet-black spider-suit seen in the trailers and appearing to battle his darker impulses; there was James Franco as Harry Osborn, dodging his father’s deadly pumpkin bombs; there was Dunst as Mary Jane and Howard as the iconic Gwen Stacy, twin temptations for both Peter and his rivals; there was Church as the Sandman, dropping a hammer-shaped fist toward Spider-Man in a series of rough computer animatic sequences, and there was Maguire again, ripping off the cursed black suit in agony.
But the big payoff was the introduction of the aforementioned Venom in the teaser footage’s climactic moments: after Grace as Eddie Brock goes to a cathedral and prays to God to kill Peter Parker, the gooey black symbiote suit drips down from the ceiling and slowly but forcefully envelops him. As he rises from the floor clad in the black suit, he raises his head and the fans got a split second look at Venom’s horrific face and the entire hall erupted in a deafening cheer.
Hollywood.com made out even better than those lucky fans, taking part in the first official Spider-Man 3 interviews with the superstar talent on hand. For the first words on the film, we sat down with the returning Raimi, Maguire and Dunst, then chatted with the new class, Church, Grace and Howard.
Hollywood.com: So are you making a big announcement today?
Sam Raimi: I am having a baby. [Laughs] No. What do you mean?
HW: They have been speculating about big news coming out of Comic-Con.
Raimi: You mean in regards to the story and the characters and the picture? Not interested in my personal life then, I guess? That’s fine. Yes, there is a big announcement that we were going to make today in front of the kids who come to Comic-Con and that is that the movie, the big villain that we have been expecting will be…my mother-in law [Laughs] No, it will be Venom. He is coming to star across from Tobey in the picture as the villain, along with Thomas Haden Church who plays the Sandman. Is that the big secret?
Kirsten Dunst: You guys are like “Oh cool. We already knew that.”
Raimi: I think that is what we were basically going to reveal today.
Dunst: I thought I let that out of the bag a while ago.
Raimi: You did. You hinted at it.
HW: We always heard that you loved the classic Spider-Man villains, and that you might not be so interested in doing Venom, who was created in the 1990s. What was it that made you decide to bring Venom into this picture?
Raimi: Well, [executive producer and former head of Marvel Comics] Avi Arad—who has really got his pulse on all the Marvel fans better than any head of a corporation has ever understood those people that are interested in the corporation’s product—he really knows what those kids want, and he said “You have had two Spider-Man pictures. For this third one, there are so many kids so many fans of Spider-Man want to see Venom. Even if you didn’t grow up with him, they want to see him, so you’ve got the Sandman and that is one of your favorite villains. Why don’t you bring Venom in also and make those kids, the fans of Venom happy?” So I thought that was what we should do.
HW: How do you feel about Venom now?
Raimi: Well, now that I have seen Topher Grace perform him and saw what [screenwriter] Alvin Sargent did with the script, he created a great character. He really filled out Eddie Brock into a very meaningful character, and Tobey has a great energy with him in the few scenes that they play together as competitors. I really like him now…We had a great design team on this picture led by James Acheson, our costume designer, working with a team of brilliant sculptors, artists, painters, and we studied all the different looks. So many different artists created different looks of Venom and we tried to take the ones that we felt would work best for us, but also the ones that Avi felt were the most classic elements and based it on that.
HW: In the comic books, the origin of the black suit is extraterrestrial and a little cosmic. How do you make that fit into the somewhat more realistic world of the Spider-Man films?
Raimi: That is a good question. There are a lot of fantastic elements about Venom that you could say are in conflict with the realism that we wanted to have in the picture. We just said to ourselves “Kirsten and Tobey, you will have to do the real heavy lifting here to bring it back down to earth because he is this wild goof from outer space. So you are just going to have to connect us to the characters.”
HW: So Venom is from outer space, then?
Raimi: I never said that, sir. I don’t know what you are talking about. [Laughs]
HW: Tobey, talk about the new black costume. Is it a lot different for you?
Tobey Maguire: Not really. Pretty much the same, I mean, yeah, what it feels like – the material is similar. I think it is probably a little sleeker and sexier—kind of more like me in real life. [Laughs].
HW: There has been some speculation about a third villain, in the form of Harry Osborn. The Batman films faltered when they attempted multiple villains. How will this film pull that off with a love triangle also introduced? How do you juggle so many characters?
Raimi: The Spider-Man comic books have all of these characters and successfully interwove their stories. A lot of what we are doing is not introducing elements—like if Harry Osborn does decide to seek vengeance upon Peter Parker for the death of his father, it is certainly something that has been set up in the first and then second picture. This is more the conclusion of that, so we have less work to do in that sense, not just introducing all of these new people. One of the other villains we have tried to weave the story into Peter Parker’s personal life, in as important of a way as we could, in a way that hopefully will make more of the first two pictures and give us insights into what we have seen before. I think only with the Brock character is there a complete new introduction of elements into Peter’s life but that is okay I think because he can meet new people too.
HW: Tobey and Kristen, how do you see your characters evolution in terms of where you are coming from and where you started coming from?
Dunst: For Mary Jane, basically she is still an actress and you could see where it was heading towards in the last film with Peter—so emotionally much more adult and mature. There is a lot more at stake because their relationship—they are together. That’s okay to say, right? [Laughs] Emotionally there is a lot more at stake for all of the characters, and I think that we have gone to their relationships because they are older have just developed more and become more complicated. Emotionally it is a much heavier film to me.
Maguire: For me there is obviously a continuity of character that you have to keep up. Peter Parker is Peter Parker, so it is important to not just try to create new things for Peter just for the sake of that. But I don’t necessarily want to see the same scenes played out and Peter going through the same kind of things that he has gone through. I think that Alvin and the other people who have input into Peter’s story and what Peter is going through in this movie did a fantastic job. As an actor, for me it was like there was nothing stale about it, I got to approach it and got to do brand new really fun interesting things for myself. In terms of what the specifics of that are, you will see when you check out the movie.
HW: Tobey, do you delve into the darker side of Peter Parker? In the trailer he looks a little different and seems to act a little different. As an actor do you think “Okay, I am going to sink my teeth into the dark side of who this guy is?”
Maguire: Again, it was because we have gone into some different areas that it was new and fun for me, without losing touch with who Peter is, and so I really enjoyed the things that I got to do in the movie.
[PAGEBREAK]HW: Whether or not there are more Spider-Man films or any of you are involved in them, is this the completion of this Spider-Man story? Does this kind of bring the whole story to some closure?
Raimi: [To Dunst] Go ahead.
Dunst: Me!? Well, there is definitely a culmination, but you would have had to seen the first and the second, and this definitely ties up some storylines, but if there are more stories to tell then, if things are unresolved then we will tell them. It depends, I think, on if everyone is game and if there is a story to tell. If there is a good story I will be there.
HW: Can you talk about the casting the redheaded Bryce as the blonde Gwen Stacy.
Dunst: [To Raimi] Did you cast somebody with red hair to make up for the casting of a blonde as Mary Jane?
Raimi: No, we just cast the best actress for the part. Tobey, our producer Laura Ziskin, myself and [casting director] Grant Curtis were just trying to find the best actress for the role. Best actress—not someone that looked like Gwen Stacy or the comic books, although once the actress would have been cast that would have been our immediate job. How can we make her look like the image that the kids have grown up with? Nevertheless, in casting we are just trying to find the right person who could make it real, take the dialogue and bring it to life in the most unexpected way, bring some life to it, make it interesting and exciting for me who was watching it, for Tobey who was acting in it, for Laura who was watching it with us. That is really what the casting was about and then the moment came when Bryce [Dallas Howard] read the scene and it came to life for us, suddenly and we all looked at each other and felt energized. It was a different thing than with Kirsten and Tobey because we were after a different relationship, actually, there. But here we were looking for a great actress, and then that is what seemed to jump out at us.
Dunst: You weren’t looking for a great actress when you were casting me?
Raimi: I was also looking for a great actress… [Laughs].
Dunst: It’s okay go on.
HW: Gwen Stacy is a character who is famous in the comics for being killed. Care to comment on the possibility of killing her in this film—or possibly killing Mary Jane instead?
Raimi: I wouldn’t dream of it, Sir.
Dunst: Thanks, Sam.
Raimi: The villains may have something else in mind though.
HW: Tobey, was your interpretation of the darker Spider-Man based on anything particular from the comics?
Maguire: I mean that is sort of part of our story line but in terms of my perception of it historically…I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it like that, I didn’t really read those comics. I mean I read a few years of them from the 60’s and I didn’t really read them quite like that so I am not sure I have to think about that.
HW: Is Bruce Campbell [star of Raimi’s Evil Dead films who made a cameo in the first two Spider-Man films] in this?
Raimi: He plays a cameo, yes. He has got a new character.
HW: Is it Mysterio?
Raimi: We can’t say.
HW: Tobey, Nicolas Cage told us he wants his Ghost Rider to take on your Spider-Man. In fact, he said Ghost Rider could take out Spider-Man with one look. How do you feel about that?
Maguire: I don’t think that deserves an answer. [Laughs]
HW: Can you talk a little about the special effects? What can we expect especially with Spider-Man?
Raimi: I think what is different is that we had new challenges this time. We had to bring about the Sandman and we have got a great special effects designer in Scott Stokdyk, who is one of the two fellows who did the first two Spider-Man pictures, along with John Dykstra and now he has got the job alone. He’s got a lot of the same animators, we have replaced a lot of them, others have moved on, but the core team is there and we are trying to build upon it. We have become better at working with animation. I have learned a lot over the last five years. It is like directing animated picture after animated picture you start to understand what is working what is not and why. As far as the technical aspect and what the new hurdles are, it is really about bringing about Sandman to the screen. How can we make it believable to the audience not just fantastic but believable that this fellow could turn into sand and become this substance and still be a human being, it is really about feeling the hand and the manipulation of the artist all of the time. Just getting into the dream of it and getting sucked up in the story. It’s is about technical expertise and artistic expertise on behalf of the teams of artist that we have working on those effects. They have made a lot of new techniques available to themselves, they have developed some new programs, written some new programs, they have taken some existing software and combined it into new ways we haven’t seen, new applications for it, and a lot of just ideas that they have been groundbreaking on. That is still groundbreaking—we are still not sure we can do it actually.
HW: How does that relate to creating Venom?
Raimi: Venom is less of a technical challenge and more of an artistic challenge, and trying to capture the spirit of this very powerful, somewhat spider-ized graceful but animal, not-Spider-Man style of movement. That is more about capturing a dance form on screen.
HW: Tobey, can you talk about some of the physical stuff in the movie? Did anything push you to the limits – and are you past the back problems you experienced earlier?
Maguire: Yeah, my back is fine, thanks. I enjoy doing this stuff, and I do the stuff that I can do and that is safe. I don’t know—it’s an interesting part of the job. When I watch the stuntmen do the really, really crazy stuff, my mind gets blown and I go “I can’t believe they do that.” It’s really amazing, and me saying this is a little ill-advised because most actors, I don’t understand how they do this: Some actors come in and say “I do all my own stunts.” By the way, I just want to tell you guys any actor that says they do all their stunts is not telling you the truth. Unless they are, like, jumping over a little gate or something.
HW: Can you talk about the challenges of adapting this beloved story for the screen not only twice but three times? How has the challenge increased as you have reached the third installment?
Raimi: What has been easier each time is getting to know the family that we work with and really trusting them to the point that they become complete collaborators. From Laura Ziskin, Alvin Sargent, Tobey, Kirsten, James Franco, Rosemary Harris, the directors of photography, the animators I was speaking of, the editors, there are so many people that make this movie. There are a lot of smaller films where it is one person and the actors and the writer and the producer, a tiny little core. There are 1,000 people making this, so it has gotten a lot easier because we have gotten this system of knowing each other and how we work together trusting each other. That has made everything a lot easier.
HW: Avi Arad said that the Lizard is one of the favorite villains. Are we ever going to see Dr. Curt Connors, whom we saw in the second film, go down that path?
Raimi: I am not at liberty to say, sir.
HW: The Marvel Universe perfected the art of the superhero crossover. If it can be done in the movies, which character would you love to see on screen with Spider-Man?
Raimi: If that were possible, I guess somebody that would be interesting to see in a scene of Peter Parker interacting with, in their alter egos. I would have to think about that, I don’t want to just answer that causally. Somebody that represented some sort of conflict or some other side of life. It would have to be somebody that created some sort of serious conflict with Peter’s whole point of view on what this job of superhero is probably. It could be a lot of things but that is one idea though.
HW: Previously you have done some visual nods to covers and panels lifted directly out of the comic books. Do you have any specific shots that mimic certain comic book images in the third film?
Raimi: In this story we are less specific, but we did try and stay very true to the Venom comic books when they describe his birth, the creation of Venom. They did try and stay true to the writers and the artists ideas of how that happened.
HW: Finally, what do you have planned for Aunt May? The poor little old lady had been thrashed around quite a bit in the previous films.
Raimi: What do you think, Tobey?
Maguire: I don’t know. At some point Bruce Campbell told me that Sam likes to torture his actors, and I thought…
Raimi: [Interrupts] We are out of time. [Laughs] Thanks very much.
Check out Part Two of our Spider-Man 3 extravaganza as Hollywood.com sits down with Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace and Bryce Dallas Howard here!
