The Amazing Spider-Man “Untold Story” Event

This afternoon I caught a special presentation of the upcoming Sony Pictures’ The Amazing Spider-Man, set for release this July 3^rd.

After going to the dentist earlier today, I swung (har har) into my office near Union Square and checked in on a few projects, answered some emails, watched some cuts, jumped on a few conference calls all while mildly anticipating my afternoon. I was invited over the weekend to a “special event” and, through the tip off of a sponsored hashtag on Twitte, it was plain to see that it had something to do with Spider-Man. In an effort to not spend millions on Super Bowl commercial space, and not get lost in the hype of all the other brands competing for eyeballs, Sony made the genius move of offering a sneak peak of “The Untold Story” to hardcore Spidey fans the day after the big game.

As I sat waiting for the event to begin, a cute journalist sat next to me reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I racked my brain on how to start talking to her for a moment but decided to continue my adventure with Katniss and the remaining six tribunes on my Kindle instead. 

In an event that clocked in around just 30 minutes, Sony actually pulled off the best fan sneak peak event I’ve ever attended. While still peppered with corny pre-selected fan questions [Question: Andrew, Why did you want to play Spider-Man?, Answer: I’m not an idiot!] and the awkwardness that always come with live simulcasts from multiple cities, fans who stood in line (some since eight in the morning) had a freaking blast.

The event was simulcast, with cast and crew piping in from LA, NYC, London, and Rio, along with a few other locations across the globe. Los Angeles got director Marc Webb (get it? “Webb”?), London got Rhys Ifans, Rio got Emma Stone, Avi Arad and one other producer. Luckily, NYC got MTV’s always-a-pleasure-to-see Josh Horowitz as the event’s emcee, along with Spider-Man himself, Andrew Garfield. After the multiple-city intros of talent, the lights dimmed and we put on our 3D glasses to check out the new trailer, which premieres tonight at midnight PST.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering what I actually saw, and to that I can only say that I saw the Spider-Man movie I’ve always wanted to see. While there are tons of critics who are baffled by the reboot and love Raimi’s series, I have a confession: I never really liked the original trilogy. And you know what’s batshit nuts? I like the often-maligned third film the best, mostly because of how insane it is.

I’ll leave describing the trailer to the side (because you are going to see it within mere hours of my posting this) but suffice to say, the 3D looks awesome and lots of talk after watching it consisted of murmurings that this looks way better than The Avengers.  

 What I can talk about is the insane 10+ minute preview of the film we saw. The worst part about it was that I now feel like I’ve seen the whole movie, but the best part about it? I’ve seen a pretty great Cliff notes version of a film that looks pretty great. The action is stylized. This isn’t a new Spider-Man / Peter Parker – this is the Spider-Man / Peter Parker we’ve all “imagined.” He’s not a huge stupid loser, he’s an outcast, orphaned dude. He wears a Ramones tee-shirt! That’s not a loser, that’s a cool dude! His glasses don’t look like fake movie glasses, he wears cool ones!

 The most hipster/indie scene involves Peter Parker getting scolded by the greatest Uncle Ben ever, Martin Sheen, in the school hallway. Gwen Stacy stands cutely in the background. After Martin, er, Uncle Ben notices Gwen, he busts Peter’s balls in front of her (in a hilarious fashion), leading to his exit and Peter and Gwen finally being alone in the hallway. They awkwardly chat as Peter tries to ask Gwen on a date [pictured above]. They are both super into it, super cute about it, and they literally don’t make any sense with their words. It’s Webb’s humble homage to his 20s-angst from 500 Days of Summer. (I also think a Coldplay song is playing in the background – but may have been temp music.)

 Other notable awesome scenes include:

-     Peter Parker seems like a realistic teenager, from mannerisms to unpreparedness

-     Peter testing out his powers looks so much cooler than Tobey ever did

-     There’s some sweet backstory with his parents

-     The Lizard looks like a cross between the Gumbas in Super Maro Bros. The Movie and the leaked Pez dispenser

-     This Spidey is cool

-     Doesn’t look like Peter works for the Daily Bugle, he does the school newspaper though

-     He’s good at skateboarding

-     The 3D looks sweet and was legit shot in 3D which is always good

-     You actually feel like the web shooters are an actual device as opposed to an afterthought; the web shooters also flash red

-     Denis Leary as Captain George Stacy is awesome

-     Spider will probably get unmasked at some point, he will also probably run out of web-shooting cartridges at a critical moment

Some other highlights of the event included:

 Emma Stone talked the differences between Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson, and the key difference (besides their hair color) is that “Gwen falls in love with Peter Parker, Mary Jane falls in love with Spider-Man”.

 Andrew Garfield, who is the most humble dude to ever jump on a mic and promote a film, talked about how he’s just the guy in the suit and Tobey was before him and hopefully after he’s Spider-Man a “half-Hispanic, half-African American actor” will play him.

Afterwards, I grabbed a beer with some of the bloggers who enjoyed the footage, but were concerned that they saw everything. But what did you expect? They promised we’d get a glimpse of “The Untold Story,” and boy did we ever.