Star Trek scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have been tapped to take on another sequel, this time for Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise. The trades are reporting that the pair have been tapped to write a new draft for the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, which hasn’t even opened yet.
Orci and Kurtzman’s Spidey sense is tingling
Star Trek, Zorro, Mission: Impossible and Transformer writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are going to be adding another franchise to their resumes — Spider-man. According to The Wrap and other industry trades, the pair have been tapped to write the script for the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man, directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield, which opens on 4th of July weekend this summer.
The pair are quoted by the Wrap:
"We grew up as huge Spider-Man fans so, to us, the opportunity to work on this film is akin to being handed the Holy Grail,” Kurtzman and Orci said. “We love the direction Sony and the filmmakers are taking the Peter Parker/Spider-Man mythology, and we couldn’t be more excited to be a part of this legendary franchise."
James Vanderbilt (who co-wrote The Amazing Spider-man) has already completed a first draft of the script, but he is already at work on another film for Sony (White House Down), which The Hollywood Reporter says is a high priority for the studio, hence the need to bring in Bob and Alex.
Spider-man joins a number of other TV and film projects Kurtzman and Orci have in various stages of development, including the Star Trek sequel, Ender’s Game, and Kurtzman’s directorial debut People Like Us, which opens June 29 (one day before The Amazing Spider-man).
Here is the trailer for the film coming out this summer.
“Oh, what a wicked web we weave…….”
I hope the guys could graduate Peter Parker from high school. Yeah, I know Hollywood must appeal to the base audience, teenagers. But they rebooted Spider-Man just after the last film ran in 2007. Could we have a compromise? The story takes place with young Peter Parker who is now a high school graduate and in college. Can’t have him graduate yet, that would make him too old. ;-) And God forbid if any main character is over thirty.
You gotta be fracking kidding m???. Bob, you guys are better then this used retread franchise.
As a Spidey fan this is GREAT news! Which I read about a week ago,lol! So Trek isn’t a used retread franchise? No comment on that one.
Have fun y’all! J-R!
guessing Star Trek 3 won’t open until 2020 now
My only issue with the new Spiderman movie is, do we really NEED this? I mean, it’s only 10 years since the first one, and 5 since the last sequel. Some of the clips I saw of the new movie just remind me so much of the origins story of the 1st movie (with minor variations), that I really don’t know what would compel them to start all over again….
But I have to say, the casting looks superb.
Emma Stone is amazing; loved her roles in “Easy A” and “The Help.” There’s an Oscar on the way for her someday. Same for Andrew Garfield (“The Social Network”). If the cast were the reason for the remake? Then I could almost understand (though it still seems like a lot of effort just to make a version 2.0 so soon after the previous one).
Isn’t there anyone left in Hollywood who can tap a keyboard? The industry is turning into a Bobopoly! I’m going to bring AntiTrust action under the Sherman Act against boborci. His Herfindahl-Hirschman Index is off the scale!
Hey, boborci… I keeeeeeeeeeed! :)
Can we stay away from any villain that is a mirror of the hero.
The Avenger’s was amazing, more than it even promised to be but it was still a main villain who was a mirror of one of the main heroes.
Iron man did the same thing for two films.
Great move getting Orci and Kurtzman. Just hoping we can get away from the traditional formula.
Spider man… Spider man….
…………………………………… amazing… ;-) :-)
#3
Yep. It’s best they stay away from retread franchises and stick to stuff like Star Trek, Transformers, and Hawaii 5-O.
“The Amazing Spider-Man” looks great. Good for Bob and Alex for taking the sequel. TASM will be a smash at the box office. Might do better than “The Dark Knight Rises”.
#3.
“Bob, you guys are better then this used retread franchise.”
So, you preferred that they not be involved with “Star Trek”? Because before they took that job, ST was considered a retread.
Yes, it’s only fair that Star Trek be put to bed forever now. 700 hours of the bloody thing is more than enough.
Well I’m glad to see The Fellas gettin a crack at Spiderman.
Now instead of a villain, how about a conflict between Spiderman and some other superhero this time?
I always loved the hero vs. hero comics.
Enough with the kiddie spiderman stuff, Bob and Alex. You guys should be moving on to bigger and better things than this tenagerish version of Spiderman with the Robert Patterson look-alike in the lead.
When I saw the trailer for this in the movie theater recently, there were groans the audience. And they lady next to me said “why are they doing this again.”
I expect a big opening weekend, and then I look for this to drop off significantly by Week 2. It will probably make 150M U.S, but it is not going to come close to the original. People just really don’t want this right now, so close after the original trilogy.
And also, I think the Twightlight/Hunger Games younger crowd they are targeting this for won’t really be all that excited about this.
Bob and Alex, you guys should have said no to this one.
So they’re ALREADY commissioned a sequel to their pointless Spider-Man “reboot”, without even knowing how much money Spider-Man redux will gross?
All the more reason I won’t be seeing the “reboot” in theaters (the new Batman and Superman movies don’t look very good either… apparently the ONLY villains Superman writers can ever think of using after 30+ years are Lex Luthor and General Zod)
How about coming up with some ORIGINAL stories for existing franchises, Hollywood? Is that really so hard? Planet of the Apes did it last year, so did Sherlock Holmes.
At least we can be thankful the Trek writers appear to have resisted the demands of keyboard warriors to remake “Wrath of Khan”
I’m a big Spidey fan (and a big Ultimate Spider-Man fan) and didn’t love the Raimi movies (I loved the Raiminess of them, I like the guy’s work… but). I’m probably looking forward to this as much as the next Star Trek.
15. Superman’s villains were mostly lame, by the way — Luthor was the villain like 90% of the time. Darkseid would be tough to do well. Braniac? I never really got Doomsday. I’m looking forward to it (Man of Steel). Michael Shannon is terrific. I’m hoping they don’t spend too much time on the origin stuff. And I’m hoping it’s not as stylized and CGI-heavy as Snyder’s other stuff. But, yeah, Superman’s tough, villain-wise because he’s either completely invulnerable — or, with Kryptonite, completely vulnerable. And his other weaknesses — “don’t hurt my friends, don’t hurt Earth” well, the stories get pretty repetitive, pretty fast.
As always, though, I like to be proven wrong.
Good God man, why are our great Trek writers getting involved in this silly Spiderman movie that is so obviously aimed at the Twilight crowd? No thanks….boooooring!
5. number 3 – April 28, 2012
“guessing Star Trek 3 won’t open until 2020 now.”
Bob and Alex are script writers. My understanding is that they aren’t part of day-day filming. The script was finished months ago and filming is about ‘to wrap. Trek’s not a full-time job for the guys, at this point.
Hope you don’t come to regret not consulting your advisers here on the threads before making this career move, Bob. You probably think you’re in the best position to make the choice–outrageous!
May you guys successfully reboot Spider-man.
17. What are you talking about? Twilight crowd? Spidey was a teenager in the beginning. This has a pretty decent cast.
18. They’re also producers, so they’re on the Trek set (or, at least they can be) — at least from what Bob has said on here before.
Regardless, I really doubt this would impact Trek in any way.
17. And, just to clarify. It’s just my opinion, but I’ve seen no evidence (yet) that this is going to be a shoddy remake just to reel in the kids. There’s a decent director (Marc Webb [500 days of summer, which was cute, but good]), good leads, decent writers (James Vanderbilt [zodiac], Steve Kloves [wonder boys, harry potter], and Alvin Sargent [ordinary people, Spider-Man 1, 2, 3]).
The comic series this is apparently based on was itself a reboot of the original Spider-Man, and Spidey’s a skinny, smart, smart-ass 15-year-old kid who’s in way, way over his head a lot of the time.
Plus, no more organic web shooters.
Jack,
But I read an article way back when they announced it that specifically said that they wanted a new Spiderman for the Twilight generation. Given that, and given it seems like we just recently invested heavily in what I thought was THE Spiderman series, I just don’t understand the purpose of this movie. I don’t see a lot of people beyond a few hardcore Spiderman fans getting that excitied about it. My 16 year old son could give a rats ass about it, and he is their audience.
Why are they making this movie???
22. Will be fun.
I have no problem with them going with a different actor and direction with the Spiderman movies, but do they have to tell his origin—again! Same goes for The Man of Steel. Everyone knows that story. We’ve seen it before.
Batman Begins and Casino Royale were successful because those origin stories had never been explored in film before (the Peter Sellers spoof doesn’t count).
Grats Bob and Alex :)
To be able to work on Transformers, Star Trek, Mission Impossible, you guys are blessed :) what’s next Knight Rider or a Doctor Who movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch?
22. Bob. That’s all I ask for. :)
21. RSD. Hey, I thought the same thing when they first announced it (because, I think it seemed incredibly sudden — hey guys, that Raimi Spiderman 4 we’ve been talking about will now be a total reboot, and it will be out in a year or so). Heck, it still may suck. But it looks pretty promising to me.
And, 23, I think the Raimi film really glossed over the origin stuff (apart from the endless Uncle Ben stuff), but I’m pretty interested in Peter’s parents and the backstory there. Why am I writing sentences like Sarah Palin? I’m not sure how closely they’ll follow Ultimate, but I was a big fan of the way they retold the origin story.
There was a nice Onion story once – Local boy dies of leukemia after radioactive spider bite.
I agree with the 75% of the people here who are wondering why they are rebooting Spiderman, and why would Kurtzman and Orci waste their time with a movie that most people don’t want to see?
I guess you’d want to do a Spiderman movie if you are a fan of Spiderman and want to contribute something to the Spiderman universe.
Same reason someone would want to do a Star Trek movie, really.
Um…isn’t writing a script for a sequel to a movie which hasn’t come out yet, kind of a “cart before the horse” situation?
I mean we don’t know how this new Spiderman will do at the box office & considering the trailer looks awful, I am thinking this is a bad omen.
“Um…isn’t writing a script for a sequel to a movie which hasn’t come out yet, kind of a “cart before the horse” situation? I mean we don’t know how this new Spiderman will do at the box office & considering the trailer looks awful, I am thinking this is a bad omen.”
Well said!
they must be very sure that the newspidey is already gonna be a mega hit—if the twilight teen crowd is the reason for the reboot then they are excluding most of their audience us bioomers who grew up with spidey…i love spidey i was an original spidey comic fan since the mid 60s….spidey and fantastic four/marvel opened a whole fantastic relateable world to me…before that i read dc…after marvel very rarely read dc…the neal adams green lantern/arrow social comments a rare exception as was kirbys fourth world(he created darkseid) whom i would way prefer over general zod/`luthor as a supes villain…imagine a boom tube….and new gods in a movie…..wow…darkseid would be tough to make scary/cool..smallville made him kinda elemental/vague as ff did with galactus in their last movie..another kirby/lee villain…
im with bob orci on this one—an honor to do spidey…but..i agree with everyone…i can understand a cast change but why reboot so soon–kinda dumb n wastes story telling space–least bob n alex wont have to reboot spidey again i hope…bob n alex seem to be taking over the movie franchise universe….does this mean a spidey star trek crossover movie coming soon?(only half kidding) ….
hey and spidey comic fans i got a letter i wrote printed way back in spiderman #157(1976)..also xmen # 212(1986)….also hulk,in fact the first appearance of wolverine..a couple of times starlog magazine…crazy humor mag…a kirby captain america issue etc….so mr orci sir does that count me as a longtime spidey fan?
@ 13
I love the hero versus hero idea. Can anyone remember when DC and Marvel teamed up in 76 and released the spiderman versus superman comic?
That was originally put forward as an idea for a movie but the Reeves Superman was already on the table so they went the comic route.
I think a dc marvel team up could be box office gold and with Superman being rebooted it may be time to put that idea back on the front burner.
I’ll also add that i thought rebooting spiderman was a lame idea at first but seeing Andrew Garfield in the role i think he is the most like the comic book spiderman i remember. If the story is good i expect this one to be a major hit.
Cover for the above mentioned comic http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cd/SupermanvsSpider-Man1976.jpg/250px-SupermanvsSpider-Man1976.jpg
Oh look, Star Trek, Zorro, Mission Impossible and Transformers…not a single original movie idea between them.
Getting something original out of MovieLand seems to be getting less and less likely these days.
“The Amazing Spider-Man” reportedly cost less than $90 million, so even if it flops, they have given themselves a bit of slack to get it right with the sequel.
Having grown up in New York, I have s special place in my heart for Marvel comics, as opposed to DC. There were real locations, not some imaginary places like Smallville. Spider-man, especially, took place in Queens, NY and other parts of NY City. And one of the pleasures of the first movie was seeing all of the real locations come to life. When they moved the sequel to Chicago and downtown LA for filming, something just went a little flat. By the third film, Spider-Man was so generic that there was no point in even watching it. I did, but found it lacking.
Spider-Man comics were so spot-on about the effect of a superhero on society, that when we got REAL crime-fighting teenagers (The Guardian Angels) the response was almost the same in real life as in the comics. The cops hated and harassed them, and the newspapers castigated them.
But if you had to travel at night on the A train from Brooklyn to Harlem, and there were no transit cops to protect you (Koch’s budget cutbacks) the Guardian Angels were a welcome sight. It occurred to me one night, that this skinny teenager in the red beret and funny t-shirt was the only thing standing between me and a mugging.
Authenticity is what gave the Spider-Man franchise a special kick.
I hope and trust that this continues with Mr. Kurtzman and Mr. Orci.
As most Spider-Man fans will tell you, Spider-Man is not the strongest guy in the world (I think he’s number 4 at the Marvel pantheon) so that the early comic books emphasized his smarts over his brawn. There were often elaborate plots where Spider-Man had to trick his opponent, not bash him. That also was kind of missing from the first franchise. By spider-Man 3, the story became nothing more than a slugfest in spandex.
Also , Spider-Man did not speak very much when he was fighting. In the comics, he used to wise crack a lot, as much to keep up his nerve as anything else. That was the fun of the comic. Behind the mask, he was often terrified. He was still kind of kid in a man’s body.
One thing that always annoyed me about the movies, is that they portrayed Peter Parker as some kind of loser, who becomes BMOC because he’s Spider-Man. In the early Ditko comics, Peter had everything to live for. He had not one but two girlfriends, he was brilliant and he was a good kid.
All he had to do was stay in school to become a doctor, scientist, lawyer, or whatever. The irony of Spider-Man was that this middle class kid (maybe a little shabby genteel) fell from the middle class into near poverty BECAUSE he was a super hero. Being Spider-Man was ruining his life. Anytime a good break came his way, he had to chose between a good life and heroism. It got to the point where he was often tempted to steal or commit crimes. And he didn’t need any “black suit” to be corrupted. The comics could often be very moving.
But there was also some joy in web-slinging. We got a sense of this at the end of the first movie. A 15 second hand-drawn animation sequence that (at the time) was breathtaking. I hope there is more of this, rather than the Tex Avery-elastic-squishy-CGI we have become accustomed to.
36. VulcanFilmCritic – April 29, 2012
Having grown up in New York, I have s special place in my heart for Marvel comics, as opposed to DC. There were real locations, not some imaginary places like Smallville. Spider-man, especially, took place in Queens, NY and other parts of NY City. And one of the pleasures of the first movie was seeing all of the real locations come to life. When they moved the sequel to Chicago and downtown LA for filming, something just went a little flat.
***
I agree and I felt the same way growing up in the city that Spiderman called home. Spiderman is a New York City character. Keep him that way.
Just watched Iron Man 2 again. And Iron Man/Iron Man 2 are still the best Marvel Comics movies so far to me. I’m not just saying that because Iron Man was my childhood favorite (Spiderman was close), or because I love how Favreau turned the old Flushing location of the 1964 World’s Fair into the Stark Industries Expo (the Unisphere was a favorite destination for me on my bike).
They were just such good movies, and I could not have hoped for a better Tony Stark than Robert Downey Jr.
Now I’ve heard that John Favreau once worked at the RKO Keith’s movie theater in Flushing (long since closed, now). It was a spectacular theater from the old movie palace days when movie theater interior design was something amazing to behold, and the Keith’s was one of the most amazing.
I wonder if he’d confirm if I asked him via Twitter?
Boborci
Are you going to make spyderman more eppic then star trek? Or is that even possible?
@ 38 I remember the RKO Keith. And the Leow’s Valencia, which looked like an elaborate Moorish palace at night. I think they even had little lights in the navy blue ceiling to simulate stars. And the Sunrise Drive-In where you really could see the stars.
I saw ST 09 at a real drive-in in Virginia. I can’t wait to see the next one under the stars as well.
The next Spidey film? Gotta see it on the biggest screen I can find in Manhattan.
The RKO Keith’s:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=rko+keiths&mid=E342A000A2233C86C521E342A000A2233C86C521&view=detail&FORM=VIRE2
You know, I was kind of hoping for an “Iron Man”/”Star Trek” crossover movie. It wasn’t going to happen before, and definitely not now since Disney owns the movie rights, but it would have been interesting to see.
They could have had the Stark family assist in the production of warp technology for Zefram’s Cochrane’s Phoenix, and continue on into the twenty-third century developing weapons, transporters/replicators, armor hull plating, shields, etc for Federation starships.
Iron Man could help Kirk’s Enterprise defeat the Klingons who are trying to steal advanced tech from the Federation. A “what-if” story perhaps.
Maybe they can do it in the comics.
I don’t know. It’s been a wierd fantasy of mine.
@42: Not a bad idea. But I would say that, since I love both…wouldn’t I?
Disney owns the movie rights to Iron Man? Since when? I saw the Paramount/Marvel Studios logos at the beginning of Iron Man 2 today.
#43.
Marvel was aquired by Disney in late 2010 or early ’11. The third “Iron Man” movie is being made by Disney. Ditto for the sequels to “Thor 2”, “Captain America 2” and further “Avengers” films. Sony retains the rights to the “Spider-Man” movies for reasons I can’t remember.
And Fox has the rights to X-Men, I believe.
A lot of different studios in the Marvel multi-verse.
@38. I am with you on Iron Man 1 — a refrehsingly original movie, great story, and a genius casting of RD Jr.. I could not stand Iron Man 2 though — the story was boring, the action limited, and seeing his mid-life crisis and getting drunk was lame; plus Don Cheadle suckes as the replacement for his original best friend.
I didn’t mind “Iron Man 2”. I liked Don Cheadle more than Terrence Howard. I agree that it isn’t as good as the first. I hope Jon Favreau isn’t slipping. “Cowboys & Aliens” just didn’t live up to the hype. It was so disappointing.
Iron Man 2 was great fun.
#48
Agreed.
For me the best part was the drones saluting the crowd at Stark Expo. Not sure why. Just got a kick out of it.
fox will also be rebooting ff in 2014–they will lose rights to fan four if they dont make a movie…guess disney/marvel owns the rest…kirbys family ought to be paid a mllion bucks by marvel/disney..iron man–kirby….thor…kirby…hulk..kirby…capt. america kirby in he 40s n again with lee…sgt fury aka one eye…kirby…heli carrier..kirby etc..just the money they made from cap n thor n iron man…a billion or more….they owe kosmic king kirby a lot—more than stan lee…in my opinion..hey even darth vader…ripoff of kirby lee villain dr. doom…yah in iron man 2 i loved the stark expo…end credits have a sherman bros song about the future that is a spoof of their own disney song from carousel of progress used to be at disneyland n debuted at new york worlds fair theres a great big beautiful tomorrow…loved the spoof…they really copied disney for starks dads fair—hilarious…only thingi didnt like re iron man 2–villain almost same kinda villain as in first movie..