The New Spiderman

New decade, new Spiderman:

British actor Andrew Garfield is to play comic book superhero Spider-Man in the next outing of the film series, it has been announced.

Hmmm. I’m not going to comment on whether or not I think Garfield is a good choice as Spiderman – after all, I was very circumspect about both the casting of both David Tennant and Matt Smith as the Doctor, and I was wrong about both of them. However, I can’t help but feel that the replacement of both the star and the director of a film franchise if often not a sign of rude health for that franchise. Particularly if that franchise is about a superhero.

Furthermore, the success of the Spiderman films to date has, to a very large extent, been down to the star and the director. To lose them would be a little bit like the sequel to The Dark Knight starring someone other than Bale as Batman, and with a different director to Nolan.

Yet… yet it would take a lot to argue that Spiderman 3 was anything other than a disappointment. Raimi threw plotting out the window in favour of set-pieces showing of the latest Visual FX, while Tobey Macguire looked like a smug, puffy-faced Peter Parker and seemed incapable of playing the more malign version of the hero required by the film. And since this film – which is looking at the formative years of Parker – appears to be an almost necessary reboot, perhaps it is the best thing for the franchise.

For fans of the series, I guess we have to cross our fingers and hope that this is the Spiderman equivalent of Batman Begins rather than Batman Forever…