Spider-Man 2

Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi and written by Alvin Sargent from a story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Michael Chabon. The sequel to the 2002 film Spider-Man, it is the second film in Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy based on the fictional Marvel Comics character of the same name. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco reprise their respective roles as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Mary Jane Watson, and Harry Osborn.

Set two years after the events of Spider-Man, the film focuses on Peter Parker struggling to manage both his personal life and his duties as Spider-Man, while Dr. Otto Octavius (Doctor Octopus) becomes diabolical following a failed experiment and his wife's death. He uses his mechanical tentacles to threaten and endanger the lives of New York City's residents. Spider-Man must stop him from annihilating the city.

Spider-Man 2 was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters on June 30, 2004, to positive reviews. It grossed over $783 million worldwide and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. It also received five awards at the Saturn Awards ceremony including Best Fantasy Film and Best Director for Raimi. The film's success led to Spider-Man 3, released in 2007.

Plot

Peter Parker struggles to balance his crime-fighting duties as Spider-Man with the demands of his normal life. He loses his job, faces financial difficulties, and struggles to maintain his physics studies at Columbia University. Moreover, he has become estranged from both love interest Mary Jane Watson, who to Peter's disappointment is in a relationship, and best friend Harry Osborn, who falsely accuses Spider-Man of murdering his father Norman Osborn. Peter additionally discovers his Aunt May is threatened with foreclosure.

Harry, now the head of Oscorp's research division, sponsors the brilliant nuclear scientist Otto Octavius, who dreams of perfecting sustained fusion power, and wears a harness of powerful robotic tentacle arms with artificial intelligence while conducting his research. When a power spike causes an experiment to quickly destabilize, Octavius stubbornly refuses to shut the experiment down, leading to disastrous consequences: his wife is killed, the neural inhibitor chip which keeps the arms from influencing his mind is destroyed and the arms are fused to his spine. Spider-Man arrives and shuts down the experiment before it can do any further damage.

At a hospital, doctors prepare to surgically remove Octavius' arms and harness, but the arms, having developed sentience from the inhibitor chip's destruction, spring to life and murder most of the medical crew. Upon regaining consciousness and seeing the carnage, Octavius escapes and hides at a harbor. The arms convince him to retry the experiment. To fund it, Octaviusâ€"now called "Doctor Octopus" by the Daily Bugleâ€"robs a bank.

After Peter misses Mary Jane's debut play, she, in retaliation, becomes engaged to astronaut John Jameson, son of Bugle chief J. Jonah Jameson. Peter is devastated, and this, in addition to all the other stress factors in his life becomes too much, causing him to lose his powers. He abandons his Spider-Man identity and returns to his normal life while trying to reconcile with Mary Jane.

A garbageman brings Spider-Man's costume to J. Jonah Jameson, who blames himself for Spider-Man's disappearance. Peter tells Aunt May that his Uncle Ben's death some time ago was partially his fault. Although initially shocked, May quickly forgives him, but when his nine-year-old neighbor mentions Spider-Man's disappearance and the subsequent rising crime rate in New York City, Peter begins pondering if abandoning his Spider-Man identity was a wise choice. Octavius needs tritium to fuel his reactor and goes to Harry to demand it. Harry initially refuses because the experiment threatens to level the city, but he eventually agrees in exchange for Spider-Man and tells him that Peter, who is supposedly good friends with Spider-Man, is the key to finding him. Octavius finds Peter, tells him to find Spider-Man, and abducts Mary Jane. Peter realizes his powers are restored due to the trauma of seeing Mary Jane kidnapped, and dons his costume again after stealing it from the Bugle.

As Spider-Man battles Octavius, they fall onto a rapid transit R train. Octavius disables the controls and jumps off. Spider-Man stops the train before the track ends. When he faints from exhaustion, the passengers carry him into one of the cars. He comes to and realizes his mask is off, but the passengers are so grateful they vow not to reveal what he looks like. Octavius returns, demanding Spider-Man, and subdues the passengers. After knocking out Spider-Man, Octavius delivers him to Harry.

After giving Octavius the tritium, Harry prepares to kill Spider-Man, and is shocked to see it is really Peter. Peter convinces him greater things are at stake, and Harry reveals Octavius' location. Spider-Man arrives at the doctor's waterfront laboratory and tries to rescue Mary Jane discreetly. One of Octavius' tentacles senses him, and they fight. Spider-Man ultimately subdues Octavius, reveals his identity, and convinces Octavius to let go of his dream for the greater good. Octavius finally commands the tentacles to obey him and drowns the fusion reactor, along with himself, in the Hudson River. Mary Jane discovers Spider-Man's true identity, as well as why they cannot be together. Peter returns Mary Jane to John and leaves.

Harry is visited by a vision of his father, pleading for Harry to avenge his death. Refusing to hurt Peter, Harry shatters the mirror, revealing a secret room containing the Green Goblin's equipment and performance enhancers. On her wedding day, Mary Jane abandons John at the altar and runs to Peter's apartment, where she admits her true feelings for Peter. They kiss, and after hearing police sirens, she encourages him to respond as Spider-Man.

Cast

• Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker / Spider-Man

A superhero, a Columbia University physics student and photographer for the Daily Bugle. Juggling these separate lives means he briefly gives up his responsibilities as a superhero in a moment of adversity. When Maguire signed on to portray Spider-Man in 2000, he was given a three-film contract. While filming Seabiscuit in late 2002, Maguire suffered injuries to his back and Sony was faced with the possibility of recasting their lead. Negotiations arose to replace Maguire with Jake Gyllenhaal, who at the time was dating Kirsten Dunst, who portrayed Mary Jane Watson. However, Maguire recovered and was able to reprise his role, with a salary of $17 million.

• Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson

A friend Peter Parker has loved since he was a child, yet he gave up the chance of being with her due to his obligations as a superhero.

• James Franco as Harry Osborn

Oscorp's leader and Norman Osborn's son who holds a resentment against Spider-Man over his father's death.

• Alfred Molina as Dr. Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus

A scientist and Peter's role model who goes insane after his failure to create a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Octavius is bonded with his handling equipment, four artificially intelligent mechanical tentacles. Molina was cast as Octavius in February 2003 and immediately began physical training for the role. Raimi had been impressed by his performance in Frida and also felt he had the physicality. Molina only briefly discussed the role and was not aware that he was a strong contender, and was excited, being a big fan of Marvel Comics. Although he wasn't familiar with Doc Ock, Molina found one element of the comics that he wanted to maintain, and that was the character's cruel, sardonic sense of humor.

• Rosemary Harris as May Parker

Ben Parker's widow and Peter's aunt.

• J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson

The miserly chief of the Daily Bugle who carries a personal vendetta against Spider-Man, whom he considers a criminal.

• Donna Murphy as Rosalie Octavius

Otto Octavius' wife and assistant

• Daniel Gillies as John Jameson

J. Jonah Jameson's son, Mary Jane's fiancé and a national hero.

• Dylan Baker as Dr. Curt Connors

One of Peter's college physics professors. He is a colleague of Octavius.

• Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin

Harry Osborn's deceased father who appears as a hallucination. Dafoe came up with the idea during promotion for Spider-Man, which he compared to King Hamlet haunting his son to avenge him.

• Mageina Tovah as Ursula Ditkovich

The daughter of the landlord of Peter's apartment.

As with the previous film, Bruce Campbell has a cameo appearance as an usher who refuses to let Peter enter the theater for arriving late to Mary Jane's play, thus causing a rift in their relationship. Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee portrays a man on the street who saves a woman from falling debris during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. Scott Spiegel portrays a man who attempts to eat some pizza Spider-Man is delivering, only to have it webbed from his hands. Joel McHale portrays the teller in the bank who refuses Aunt May's loan. Hal Sparks portrays an elevator passenger who has a conversation with Spider-Man. Donnell Rawlings portrays the New Yorker who exclaims that Spider-Man "stole that guy's pizzas". Emily Deschanel portrays the receptionist who tells Parker she is not paying for the late pizza. Elizabeth Banks portrays Betty Brant, one of the Bugle staff and J. Jonah Jameson's secretary. Daniel Dae Kim plays an assistant of Doctor Octavius working in his laboratory. Aasif Mandvi portrays Mr. Aziz, the pizza store owner who later dismisses Parker. Vincent Pastore portrays a train passenger who tells Doctor Octopus that he has to get past him to get to Spider-Man; Joey Diaz portrays a similar passenger. Vanessa Ferlito portrays one of Mary Jane's co-stars. Joy Bryant has a cameo appearance as a spectator that witnesses Spider-Man in action. John Landis plays one of the doctors who operates on Doctor Octopus. Phil LaMarr portrays a train passenger who is most easily seen to the left of Spider-Man (the viewer's right) while the hero uses webbing to slow the train down. Greg Edelman portrays Dr. Davis, the doctor at the University, that Peter Parker sees to talk about the loss of his superpowers.

Production

Development

Immediately after finishing Spider-Man, director Sam Raimi segued into directing a sequel. In April 2002, Sony hired Alfred Gough and Miles Millar to write a script with Doctor Octopus, the Lizard and Black Cat as villains. On May 8, 2002, following Spider-Man's record breaking $115 million opening weekend, Sony Pictures announced a sequel for 2004. Entitled The Amazing Spider-Man, after the character's main comic book title, the film was given a budget of $200 million and aimed for a release date of May 7, 2004. The following month, David Koepp was added to co-write with Gough and Millar.

In September 2002, Michael Chabon was hired to rewrite. His draft had a younger Doc Ock, who becomes infatuated with Mary Jane. His mechanical limbs use endorphins to counteract the pain of being attached to his body, which he enjoys. When he injures two muggers on a date, this horrifies Mary Jane and in the resulting battle with Spider-Man his tentacles are fused together, and the fusion begins to kill him. In the script, Octavius is the creator of the genetically-altered spider from the first film, and gives Peter an antidote to remove his powers: this means when Octavius is dying with his tentacles, he wants to extract Spider-Man's spine to save himself. This leads to the alliance with Harry in the final film. Beforehand, Harry and the Daily Bugle put a $10 million price on Spider-Man's head, causing the city's citizens to turn against him. Producer Avi Arad rejected the love triangle angle on Ock, and found Harry putting a price on Spider-Man's head unsubtle.

Raimi sifted through the previous drafts by Gough, Millar, Koepp and Chabon, picking what he liked with screenwriter Alvin Sargent. He felt that thematically the film had to explore Peter's conflict with his personal wants against his responsibility, exploring the positive and negatives of his chosen path, and how he ultimately decides that he can be happy as a heroic figure. Raimi stated the story was partly influenced by Superman II, which also explored the titular hero giving up his responsibilities. The story is mainly taken from The Amazing Spider-Man No. 50, "Spider-Man No More!" It was decided that Doc Ock would be kept as the villain, as he was both a visually interesting villain who was a physical match for Spider-Man, and a sympathetic figure with humanity. Raimi changed much of the character's backstory, however, adding the idea of Otto Octavius being a hero of Peter, and how their conflict was about trying to rescue him from his demons rather than kill him.

Filming

Spider-Man 2 was shot on over one hundred sets and locations, beginning with a pre-shoot on the Loop in Chicago during two days in November 2002. The crew bought a carriage, placing sixteen cameras for background shots of Spider-Man and Doc Oc's train fight. Principal photography began on April 12, 2003 in New York City. The crew moved on May 13 to Los Angeles, shooting on ten major sets created by production designer Neil Spisak. After the scare surrounding his back pains, Tobey Maguire relished performing many of his stunts, even creating a joke of it with Raimi, creating the line "My back, my back" as Spider-Man tries to regain his powers. Even Rosemary Harris took a turn, putting her stunt double out of work. In contrast, Alfred Molina joked that the stunt team would "trick" him into performing a stunt time and again.

Filming was put on hiatus for eight weeks, in order to build Doc Ock's pier lair. It had been Spisak's idea to use a collapsed pier as Ock's lair, reflecting an exploded version of the previous lab and representing how Octavius' life had collapsed and grown more monstrous, evoking the cinema of Fritz Lang and the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Filming then resumed on that set, having taken fifteen weeks to build, occupying Sony's Stage 30. It was 60 feet (18 m) by 120 feet (37 m) long, and 40 feet (12 m) high, and a quarter-scale miniature was also built for the finale as it collapses. Filming was still going after Christmas 2003.

A camera system called the Spydercam was used to allow filmmakers to express more of Spider-Man's world view, at times dropping fifty stories and with shot lengths of just over 2,400 feet (730 m) in New York or 3,200 feet (980 m) in Los Angeles. For some shots the camera would shoot at six frames per second for a faster playback increasing the sense of speed. Shots using the Spydercam were pre-planned in digital versions of cities, and the camera's movement was controlled with motion control, making it highly cost-effective. The camera system was only used in the previous film for the final shot.

Effects

Although roughly the same, costume designer James Acheson made numerous subtle changes to Spider-Man's costume. The colors were made richer and bolder, the spider emblem was given more elegant lines and enlarged, the eye-lenses were somewhat smaller, and the muscle suit underneath was made into pieces, to give a better sense of movement. The helmet Maguire wore under his mask was also improved, with better movement for the false jaw and magnetic eye pieces, which were easier to remove.

To create Doctor Octopus' mechanical tentacles, Edge FX was hired to create a corset, a metal and rubber girdle, a rubber spine and four foam rubber tentacles which were 8 feet (2.4 m) long, which altogether weighed 100 pounds (45 kg). The claws of each tentacle, which were dubbed "death flowers", were controlled by a single puppeteer in a chair, to control every available form on the claw. Each tentacle was controlled by four people, who rehearsed every scene with Molina to give a natural sense of movement as if the tentacles were moving due to Octavius' muscle movement. On-set, Molina christened his co-stars "Larry", "Harry", "Moe" and "Flo", with "Flo" being the top-right tentacle.

Edge FX was only hired to do scenes where Octavius carries his tentacles. CGI was used for when the tentacles carry Octavius: a 20 ft (6.1 m) high rig held Molina to glide through his surroundings, with CG tentacles added later. The CG versions were scanned straight from the practical ones. However, using the practical versions was always preferred to save money, and each scene was always filmed first with Edge FX's creations to see if CGI was truly necessary. Completing the illusion, the sound designers chose not to use servo sound effects, feeling it would rob the tentacles of the sense that they were part of Octavius' body, and instead used motorcycle chains and piano wires.

Release

Home media

The film was initially released on DVD as a two-disc special edition on November 30, 2004. It was available in both anamorphic widescreen and Pan-and-Scan "fullscreen", as well as a Superbit edition and in a box-set with the first film. There was also a collector's edition including a reprint of The Amazing Spider-Man #50.

An extended cut of the film, with eight minutes of new footage, was released as Spider-Man 2.1 on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on April 17, 2007 and on October 30, 2007. In addition to the new cut, the DVD also included new special features not on the original release, as well as a sneak preview of Spider-Man 3.

The film was released on Blu-ray in October 2007 as a part of the Spider-Man: The High Definition Trilogy box set. It was also released separately on Blu-ray in November 2010 as well as the previous film as part of Sony's Blu-ray Essentials Collection. The Spider-Man series was re-released on Blu-ray with a different audio transfer on June 12, 2012.

Reception

Box office

Spider-Man 2 opened in the United States on June 30, 2004, and grossed $40.4 million in its first day; this broke the first film's opening day record of $39.4 million until it was surpassed a year later by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ($50.0 million). The film also broke The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King '​s record ($34.5 million) for the highest-grossing Wednesday of all time. It held the Wednesday record for three years until it was topped by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($44.2 million). Its Friday-to-Sunday gross reached a total of $88,156,227, which was the highest-Independence Day weekend, breaking Men in Black II '​s record ($52.1 million), until it was broken seven years later by Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($97.9 million). In its first six days, the film had grossed over $180 million. The film also eventually went on to gross $373.5 million, becoming 2004's second-highest grossing film, behind Shrek 2. Worldwide, the film grossed $783.7 million, ranking as 2004's third highest-grossing film behind Shrek 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Spider-Man 2 is the twenty-third highest grossing film in the U.S. and Canada.

Critical reception

Based on 248 reviews collected by the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Spider-Man 2 has a 94% overall approval rating from critics, with an average score of 8.3 out of 10. By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 83, based on 41 reviews. The film was placed at No. 411 on Empire magazine's top 500 movies list.

Chicago Tribune's Mark Caro stated that Alfred Molina was a "pleasingly complex" villain, and the film as a whole "improves upon its predecessor in almost every way." Kenneth Turan, of the Los Angeles Times, gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and concurred with Caro when he stated, "Doc Ock grabs this film with his quartet of sinisterly serpentine mechanical arms and refuses to let go." Roger Ebert, who had given the first film two and a half stars, gave Spider-Man 2 a perfect four out of four stars, calling it "The best superhero movie since the modern genre was launched with Superman (1978)", and praising the film for "effortlessly [combining] special effects and a human story, keeping its parallel plots alive and moving." He later called it the fourth best film of 2004." IGN's Richard George felt "Sam Raimi and his writing team delivered an iconic, compelling version of Spider-Man's classic foe... We almost wish there was a way to retroactively add some of these elements to the original character."

Conversely, J. Hoberman, of The Village Voice, thought the first half of the film was "talky bordering on tiresome", with the film often stopping to showcase Raimi's idea of humor. Charles Taylor believed, "The script's miscalculation of Peter's decision feeds into the pedestrian quality of Raimi's direction and into Maguire's weightlessness... [Maguire] simply does not suggest a heroic presence", and suggested that "Dunst appears to be chafing against strictures she cannot articulate."

Awards and nominations

Spider-Man 2 won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for Best Sound Mixing (Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Joseph Geisinger) and Best Sound Editing, but lost to Ray and The Incredibles, respectively. The film won Saturn Awards for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Fantasy Film, Best Special Effects, and Best Writer, while being nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Music. It was nominated for two British Academy Film Awards for Special Visual Effects and Sound, but lost to The Day After Tomorrow and Ray, respectively. The AFI listed the film as one of the 2004's ten best films, and nominated it for positions on the lists of the top 10 fantasy films, the 100 most inspiring American films, and the 100 greatest American films.

Legacy

Despite the many super-hero movies which have followed after it, Spider-Man 2 still regularly tops rankings as one of the best-loved of the genre. In 2012, Ask Men wrote, “This is the high-water mark for Spider-Man movies, and good luck to anyone who wants to top it.”

In 2013, Screen Crush wrote,"Sam Raimi's second outing with the web-slinging hero is as perfect as superhero movies get, nailing everything that's great about its hero without sacrificing the unique tone established by the first film. How exactly does Raimi pull off a movie that's simultaneously goofy, melancholy, romantic, frightening, melodramatic, crazily intense and emotionally fulfilling? Some kind of cinematic alchemy, apparently." Forbes described it as “Not just one of the greatest sequels, but one of the best films of the genre, period.”

In 2014, Yahoo Movies! wrote, "Raimi's best superhero movie still takes the cake."

Spider-Man 2 tops Rotten Tomatoes's list of the best-reviewed comic book films of all time, beating out X2: X-Men United, Batman Begins and Superman. It remains the highest-rated superhero film along with The Dark Knight at 94% on rottentomatoes.com. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named it the No. 21 greatest action film of all time.

Sequel

On 13 March 2007, Sony released a teaser trailer suggesting a new film in the Spider-Man trilogy. On 18 March 2007, Sony officially announced a sequel, titled Spider-Man 3.

References

External links

• Spider-Man 2 at the Internet Movie Database
• Spider-Man 2 at AllMovie
• Spider-Man 2 at Rotten Tomatoes
• Spider-Man 2 at Metacritic
• Spider-Man 2 at Box Office Mojo
• Spider-Man 2 at Marvel.com