The iconic movie character Emma Thompson said she’d “actually hang myself” if she saw again
If you know anything about Emma Thompson, then you’ll know that she isn’t the biggest fan of Hollywood.
Unfortunately, as an actor and screenwriter, it’s a necessary evil that she’s been dealing with for decades. On the plus side, she has managed to maintain a great deal more of her integrity than many peers by largely avoiding big-budget studio fare, and you can guarantee she’s been offered a few.
Respected, decorated, and award-laden thespians appearing in blockbuster films for an easy paycheque has been an accepted part of the business for decades, and she’s been guilty of it a few times. Only a few times, though, and on the rare occasions that she does, you can’t accuse Thompson of phoning it in.
Voiceover performances in the live-action Beauty and the Beast and Robert Downey Jr’s disastrous Dolittle, the feeble Men in Black: International, the tedious fantasy Beautiful Creatures, a scenery-chewing turn in Cruella, a couple of Harry Potter flicks, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Junior are the sum of it, and it’s easy to sympathise, because we’ve all got bills to pay.
However, there’s one genre you can bank on the two-time Academy Award and Golden Globe, three-time Bafta, and Primetime Emmy-winning star never appearing in, and it also happens to be a medium that’s continually raised the ire of Tinseltown’s elder statesmen, who loathe comic book adaptations more than most.
While Thompson prefaced that she’s not against superhero cinema in general, saying, “I loved the original Superman with Chris Reeve because there’s a real tongue-in-cheek-ness to it,” the onslaught of the 21st century’s spandex-clad crimefighters makes her roll her eyes more than anything, with one particular character sticking in her craw more than the rest.
“If I see yet another Spider-Man, I’m going to have to actually hang myself,” she offered. “They’re all marvellous, but how many times can you make this franchise, for crying out loud?” Hyperbolic, sure, but the bad news is that Thompson made those comments in September 2015.
Since then, Tom Holland has played the web-slinger in three standalone films, with a fourth on the way, not to mention his guest appearances in a Captain America sequel and a pair of Avengers movies, and his third solo outing, No Way Home, also brought back Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parkers.
There’s also Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its sequel, Across the Spider-Verse, never mind the trilogy-closing Beyond the Spider-Verse, and we haven’t even mentioned the streaming series Spider-Noir, which featured Nicolas Cage as another version of the superhero from an alternate universe. In the decade since Thompson threatened drastic measures, Spider-Man has been in nine films and a TV show, with just as many different actors playing the role, so you can only imagine how she feels now.
