Many movie news outlets have recently reported, with a mixture of disgust and revulsion, that Sony have recently announced they are "rebooting" Spider-Man. Less than ten years since the webbed wonder first hit the big screen, they're going back to the beginning again. The idea, apparently, is to return to Peter Parker's school days when he was dealing (or not dealing) with the death of his uncle. It doesn't just seem like idle gossip, either – Sony have officially hired a director, Marc Webb, who made (500) Days of Summer. Much grumbling about the fact that Sony are blatantly going after the tween Twilight audience, by concentrating on Peter's teenage years before his life as a superhero actually becomes interesting, has ensued.
Let's forget about how absurd it is to basically remake a film that's less than ten years old for a moment. It has intrigued me that another point of some consternation that has been revealed is that Sony only plan to spend $80 million on the film, a pittance compared to most major blockbusters, particularly the $258 million that Sony reportedly coughed up for Spider-Man 3. Whether this proves to be damaging or not is yet to be seen; the massive expenditure certainly didn't exactly make the third film a classic, and other films recently have proven you can look expensive while not costing very much (District 9 cost $30 million), but superhero films are always by their very nature notoriously expensive, and skimping on their budgets has in the past resulted in some turkeys (e.g. Superman IV). Suffice to say, we can expect more teenage angst and relationship troubles than pedestrian-in-peril rescues.
There have been predictions for some time that the Hollywood big-budget bubble must be due to burst at some point. George Lucas himself said in an interview a couple of years ago that he predicts a future when the average Hollywood budget will be sub-$30m, not the $80m+ of today. And with the current economic downturn, some belt-tightening by the studios would not come as a surprise, even though business is currently booming. Admittedly, the monster success of the enormously-budgeted Avatar may have delayed the popping of said bubble for a few years yet. But when we look at the history books, it does seem inevitable that these budgets, greater than the GDP of some small countries, cannot continue to be the norm for ever.
Going back to the early 1960s, for example, historical epics were all the rage, with Ben-Hur having just hoovered up 11 Oscars in the April 1960 ceremony, but then a series of over-expensive flops killed off the genre. Also popular were lavish musicals, which peaked with The Sound of Music but went rapidly downhill afterwards. A period of change at the top followed; the old moguls were out, to be replaced by young blood. The result? The 'New Hollywood', one of the greatest periods of sustained excellence that Hollywood had ever seen – a period driven by talent and ideas rather than big bucks.
Fundamentally, then, if Sony's announcement of an $80m Spider-Man does prove to be a precursor to other studios curtailing their huge budgets – and that remains a big if at this point – it may not be a bad thing. How many $100m+ summer blockbusters in 2009 were actually good? Star Trek is perhaps the only one that immediately springs to mind. Too often the ability to do anything due to virtually limitless funds is actually a barrier to creativity; after all, many of the great films of all time have been made in conditions of adversity (financial or otherwise). Moreover, the sums of money that these films cost do seem quite ridiculous.
I'm not thrilled that Spider-Man is set to return to high school. Neither am I thrilled that the focus is going to be on teen angst. But we can all agree that Spider-Man 3 wasn't very good, and perhaps a change of direction for the franchise will ultimately be beneficial. Plus, if it starts a trend of slightly less expensive blockbusters, perhaps it could lead to directors using some ingenuity again, rather than just smothering everything in CGI – which can only be for the better.
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