Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm not a really big comic book person. I know the typical ones - 'Spider-Man' and 'Wonder Woman' and 'Storm' and that stuff. But don't quiz me, because I'm not good at things like that.
There's this great panel - I forget what the actual comic is - of Spider-Man in the rain holding an umbrella and eating some Chinese takeout. It's like, that's the essence of 'Spider-Man.'
People are paying a premium to see movies in 3-D, and that's a very big deal. It's never been done before that someone says you have to pay more to see 'Spider-Man' than a romantic comedy.
I went to my first school dance on the set of 'Spider-Man.' The funny thing is, it wasn't actually real. I didn't choose my dress or my date or anything about it. I just showed up for work.
Way back in the '70s, I was approached to talk about the story I'd write for a Spider-Man movie. They also talked to me about Batman. I had to think about it, but that was way, way back when.
Even though 'Spider-Man' is a huge blockbuster, it really didn't feel like that. It felt like we were making this weird, funny high school movie. Like just hanging out with a group of friends.
We even did a re-imagining of 'Spider-Man' that James Franco starred in that didn't make it into 'This Is The End'. That didn't make the final cut, but I wouldn't be surprised if it made the DVD.
We have always looked upon Hollywood superheroes like Super-Man and Spider-man, but Baahubali is our own Indian superhero, and the connection people have made with this franchise is unprecedented.
I knew very little about 'Spider-Man'. I grew up more in the 'Superman' generation. 'Spider-Man' - I didn't know so much. But it is a really successful franchise, and I'm happy to be involved with it.
If you do approach a comics publisher, make sure it's one that publishes the kind of book you want to make. Don't take your literary fiction to Marvel or DC; don't pitch your Spider-Man epic to Image.
I think I related more literally to the early 'Spider-Man' comics from Steve Ditko because it could be upfront and direct about the problems of being a kid. He captured being a teenager so beautifully.
Every significant book at Marvel had its key antagonist. 'The Fantastic Four' had Doctor Doom; 'Spider-Man' had Doc Ock, among others; Thor had Loki, if not Surtur. Without Magneto, the X-Men had nobody.
I grew up loving X-Men, Spider-Man and Batman. Those are obviously the key big ones, but there's always something kind of cool about Aquaman still, the idea of creating a huge world that is on our planet.
In the first Spider-Man, at the end of the movie, Peter Parker had to deny himself a relationship with a girl that he's in love with. The very next thing that happens is that he's swinging through the city.
I've met so many of my idols, but the one person that has eluded me is Bono. But because he's done 'Spider-Man,' I keep thinking maybe, through a Broadway connection, somehow our paths will eventually merge.
Let's be realistic - 90% of superheroes are male. Personally, I prefer Superman, Batman and Spider-Man to Wonder Woman. Not that I don't like female superheroes, but watching male superheroes gives me a high.
I don't want you to think that I'm up late reading a stack of Spider-Man comics and eating a tray of lemon cookies while sucking my thumb. I'm not doing that. But I am loyal to the influences of my childhood.
I just remember how cool and exciting and crazy it seemed when Marvel was giving this new 'Ultimate Spider-Man' title to this crime writer Brian Michael Bendis who had never really done any superhero stuff before.
When I was a kid... if I couldn't get a ride to the comic book store, I would walk a mile and a half each way to get the latest issues of 'Batman' and 'Spider-Man' and 'X-Men.' I could not choose one over the other.
Every movie that I've picked, from my first film on, has been considered by everyone to be 'career suicide.' And I have an amazing life. I have an amazing career. I work with artists. But I'm not making 'Spider-Man.'
They do think it is a big summer movie and that's why they want to give it a great chance, but they don't want to go up against Spider-Man 2 or some of the other big movies, the $100 million films that are coming up.
'Fan' is an understatement. I had the Spider-Man costume, I had bed sheets, toys, you name it. I've always had an argument with my best friend that Spider-Man was way better than Batman. I was a massive fan growing up.
I'd been writing my own coming-of-age story, and I got to take a lot of that energy and a lot of those moments and themes that I wanted to explore in a much smaller film and then apply them to 'Spider-Man: Homecoming.'
It's important not to make Spider-Man masculine because he's a kid. As soon as you make him masculine, it's harder to relate to him if you are younger and are in high school. I definitely was not masculine in high school.
I had a Spider-man costume when I was about three, and I lost the mask. So I went to the underwear drawer and put a pair of red pants on my head. My dad came home and just laughed, and I ran into my room and burst into tears.
When you tell people you're a playwright, their eyes sort of glaze over. But when you say you write the 'Fantastic Four' or 'Spider-Man,' they perk up. It's a touchstone that has gained more credibility as artistic expression.
I turned down 'Harry Potter' and 'Spider-Man,' two movies that I knew would be phenomenally successful, because I had already made movies like that before and they offered no challenge to me. I don't need my ego to be reminded.
Every time I got 'Amazing Spider-Man' or 'Fantastic Four' or another book firmly on the rails, we got pulled into some big event book or crossover and it cost momentum and messed badly with the pacing and structure of the book.
It took a while for the first 'Blade' to get made, and Marvel decided they liked the Whistler character so much, when Blade guest starred on the 'Spider-Man' cartoon, they put Whistler on the cartoon, and the movie hadn't come out yet.
What's cool about Spider-Man is that it's everybody - anyone, you put on the suit, anyone believes that you're Spider-Man. That's what's charming about the character. He's anyone. He's a huge nerd that ends up being this huge superhero.
No one likes a pushy parent, and, 'pride' being one of the seven deadly sins, I needed to tread very carefully when creating a show about my eldest son, Tom, better known as Peter Parker and even better known as Marvel's new 'Spider-Man.'
No one knows who Peter Parker is. People just know who Spider-Man is. When you get that in the mix of growing up and finding yourself, that's more of a relatable tone than being Captain America and having the country's weight on your shoulders.
For every person who passes on the opportunity to write Spider-Man or Superman, I guarantee there are 5000 hungry writers who would give their eye-teeth to do it. But just because they want to do it, it doesn't mean they are capable of doing it.
I wish I was agile like Spider-Man and everything we do that draws on the childhood inspirations and the adulthood inspirations, for that matter. They're definitely the reason how I am, how I am today, because I was a smaller kid who was a nerd.
Spider-Man's probably my favorite. You see, Batman is a billionaire and there's nothing really cool about a billionaire saving the world. But Spider-Man is Peter Parker, a conflicted character who puts on a suit and saves the world. I love that.
When I found out about being cast in 'Spider-Man,' it was like this bubble developed around me. I was floating in it for a while. And then, suddenly, it evaporated, and I was like, 'Well, I'm just an actor. I don't get to actually be Spider-Man.'
When Ellen Datlow was running the fiction at 'Omni' in the late '80s and into the '90s, I had a subscription. It was one of two subscriptions I'd saved for, the other being 'Spider-Man.' And they each opened my mind and my heart in wonderful ways.
People may recognize me as some sort of superhero, but it's different. Spider-Man and all these other superheroes, they get superpowers and do what they want to save the city. If we need to save Hong Kong, we can't rely on superpowers, we can just rely on the people.
Well I grew up following most of the major titles like 'Fantastic Four,' 'Spider-Man,' 'Avengers,' etc. But I had also a lot of love for the smaller titles like 'Master of Kung Fu,' 'Black Panther,' 'The Defenders,' 'Inhumans,' and of course Power-Man and Iron Fist.'
There's so much I'm interested in that I didn't discover in high school. For 'The Amazing Spider-Man', because Gwen is a scientist, we went to a lab in San Diego, and we were learning about biology. And I'm fascinated! Because I never went to biology class in high school.
There are so many things we have not seen in 'Spider-Man' yet... I want to use bad guys never seen in movies. The first films were so traditional and so scrupulously followed the character's classic plot... So there's a lot of stuff left in stock. 'The Clone Saga,' for example.
'Spider-Man' was the best time of my life. I was there with my best friend. We shot in Atlanta. We shot every day and just had an absolute blast. 'Avengers' was crazy because you're on set every day with actors I never dreamed I would work with. I'm as much a fan as anyone else.
The second we started talking about doing the 'Civil War' storyline with Marvel, we brought up Spider-Man. Right away, Kevin Feige hinted to us there might be a possibility of them being able to work that out, and that's all we needed - he was in the movie the second we heard that.
'The Cape' is a really good comic! They invented the whole character, and now they've built a book of 'The Cape' for the show. When I was a kid, I used to love Batman, and I loved Spider-Man. My favorite was this guy called Judge Dredd. I know they made a movie of that in the '90s.
If you think about it, now that Spider-Man is in the Marvel universe, that means that Peter Parker was probably, like, eight years old when he saw Tony on TV telling the world he's Iron Man. And when you start thinking about it as a whole world like that, it gets really fascinating.
In comics, you have to imagine what happens. I really loved it; I loved collecting. I loved following the adventures and figuring out what was going to happen next. I was a huge X-Men fan; I was a huge Spider-Man fan, and, to large degree, I remain one. It's literature for me; it's art.
The thing that makes us root for Spider-Man as he swings across the city is that he's either having the time of his life or worrying about whether he'll be able to get a good grade on that English paper or whether or not he's going to make it home in time for Aunt May to make his dinner.
Everyone can guess what 'Corn Flakes' tastes like, even if you've never had them. But what, pray tell, does 'High School Musical' or 'Spider-Man' cereal possibly taste like? In this late era, we have reached the ultimate deracination between product image and what actually sits on our spoon.
I actually have videos on my phone of me interviewing people and asking them what they thought of the new Spider-Man in 'Civil War.' They were like, 'Oh he's great. I love him,' and then some people were like, 'Nah, I don't love him. he's not great' - and I was standing right in front of them!
Have you ever seen the video of the kid with the Spider-Man pinata? He just sets the stick down, walks over, and gives the Spider-Man pinata a hug. He doesn't want to hurt his Spider-Man. He loves him! And I think that's a universal feeling towards Spider-Man. You just can't help but love him.