Filming for Spiderman, the Movie, is underway

April 29, 2001 10:06 AM

Filming for Spiderman, the Movie, is underway and going on all this week at various spots in New York. Here are some set pictures of Peter Parker's house and shots of Spiderman saving a baby from a burning building. (clicking links will lead to spoiler pictures and a few plot summaries.)
posted by tomorama (20 comments total)

The shots of Peter's house are set in Forest Hills, Queens. They were there shooting last night until sometime in the early morning. I hung around for a little while, but it was mostly a lot of standing around, watching the crew eat soup, etc... The burning building pictures are in Manhattan, and a friend of mine from Columbia pointed me to some scenes that were shot there last week.
posted by tomorama at 10:10 AM on April 29, 2001

I keep seeing this and I think: "It might not suck, it might not suck". X-Men kept my hope alive, but you're only ever a couple degrees away from Batman & Robin.
posted by owillis at 10:16 AM on April 29, 2001

owillis: Agreed. After the travesty that was Batman Returns and Batman & Robin, X-Men restored my faith that H'Wood might get the next one right. I am very much looking forward to Spidey on the big screen. BTW, anyone heard anything about the next Batman movie, and who will play the lead? Keaton was very good, Kilmer ruined it, and Clooney had great potential but was saddled with waaay too much "in-on-the-joke" goofiness.
posted by davidmsc at 10:23 AM on April 29, 2001

AICN said it may be Clooney again. Which disappoints me. I always wish these movies could pick an unknown for the lead, like what happened to Christopher Reeve in Superman then they don't bring along their "baggage" from other performances.
posted by owillis at 10:38 AM on April 29, 2001

Actually the shots look uncannily like the late not so lamented TV series with Nicholas Hammond, the pilot for which was inflicted on me one day at school.

True story. At the end of every term the entire school would be gathered into to school hall to watch a film - on a 14 inch portable at the front. This was the how I first saw Star Wars (can you believe it) and that TV Spiderman 'masterpiece'.

As the pics themselves - well their a bit Robocop-ish, which may or may not be a good thing. Although Toby Maguire is yet to put in a bad performance, I've a few misgivings about Sam Raimi, who might overcompensate for not doing genre for a while.
posted by feelinglistless at 11:03 AM on April 29, 2001

as long as joel 'make it colorful' Schumacher isn't involver there will never be another batman and robin... and we can all thank the maker for that.
posted by Mick at 11:11 AM on April 29, 2001

I honestly think the blame for the last two Batman films should go to Joel Schumacher, if fingers should be pointed.

As for Spiderman, I wonder about it. Looking at this one and then remembering Darkman, my thought is that this may come off campy, whereas X-Men tried to be serious in a lot of ways. I don't know...
posted by Cavatica at 11:16 AM on April 29, 2001

At least we can all be thankful the rumors about Leonardo DiCaprio as Peter Parker never materialized into anything.
posted by tomorama at 11:20 AM on April 29, 2001

With Darren Aronofsky at the helm and Frank Miller wielding the pen, I'm not one bit worried about the next Batman.
posted by frykitty at 3:10 PM on April 29, 2001

i wish i could have that much faith in humanity, frykitty....
posted by jpoulos at 4:30 PM on April 29, 2001

in the comics to film genre, i'll take Ghost World over Spiderman.
posted by gluechunk at 4:37 PM on April 29, 2001

The major reason I'm not worried about the Spider-Man flick? It's being directed by Sam Raimi. The official Spider-Man site (linked earlier) has the full 40-minute press conference from January in RealVideo, and Raimi's comments therein give me a great deal of hope for the film. This is my current most-eagerly-anticipated movie.

And plus, since Raimi is directing, Bruce 'Jesus Christ' Campbell has filmed a cameo.
posted by toddshot at 4:42 PM on April 29, 2001

Miller's Dark Knight is one of my all-time fave comics. I hope he's leaning more that way than toward Robocop. Yeeg.

Toddshot: agreed on Raimi, though he has certainly done some clunkers. I have high hopes for Spidey. I'm just wondering if Tobey Maguire is going to look as stoned as he usually does, and if so, is that a good thing?
posted by frykitty at 5:02 PM on April 29, 2001

Gluechunk, given my doubts about Ghost World's casting, I'll put my money on From Hell.
posted by snarkout at 7:13 PM on April 29, 2001

Does anyone else think that, uhm, Spiderman saving a baby from a burning building is just a little... trite? Still, looking forward to it.
posted by robbie01 at 7:25 PM on April 29, 2001

I never got the Bruce Campbell "genre god" thing. Always struck me as a campy c-lister...
posted by owillis at 7:36 PM on April 29, 2001

Owillis - it's not so much for his acting skills (which he's the first to admit are not at the top of the list), but for his great down-to-earth attitude. Read some interviews and listen to his DVD commentaries on the Evil Dead trilogy discs for insight into why the fanboy types love Bruce so much.
posted by toddshot at 8:37 PM on April 29, 2001

Apparently they've gone to great lengths to make the Spider-Man costume look good on film (sewing scale-like disks into the fabric to reflect the lights and create a more 3-dimensional, muscular look), so snapshots from the shoot probably aren't going to convey the way he'll look in the movie. Nice to see somebody in Hollywood has remembered that not every superhero needs to have a molded rubber exoskeleton and codpiece.

The Green Goblin, on the other hand... well, you can't win them all...
posted by misterzoo at 10:20 PM on April 29, 2001

Let's just hope Raimi remembers that with great budgets come great responsibility.
posted by kindall at 10:47 PM on April 29, 2001

Since Ang Lee hasn't done anything but cool stuff (okay, maybe casting Jewel in a movie wasn't the brightest), I'm holding out big hopes for The Incredible Hulk, should it actually come to pass.

I'm looking forward to Spider-Man, too, but Tobey Maguire just bores the hell out of me. He's this decade's Andrew McCarthy: liquid, blank staring as acting.
posted by Skot at 8:24 AM on April 30, 2001