Quentin Tarantino’s favourite ‘Spider-Man’ movie: “All good, you know why?”
As someone who grew up reading comic books and toyed with adapting a few of them himself, it’s not that Quentin Tarantino has a problem with superheroes. Instead, his issue is the irrevocable damage they’ve caused to the landscape of cinema.
It’s a topic that’s become so heavily debated and endlessly discussed that boredom and nausea set in a long time ago, but he made some salient and accurate points. Tarantino has always adored the concept of the movie star, and he thinks brands like Marvel are contributing to its demise.
Anthony Mackie and Chris Evans agreed with him, and they each spent at least a decade as Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers, respectively. If both Captain Americas think the two-time Academy Award-winning auteur is right in saying superheroes are convincing audiences that stars matter less and less, he’s clearly onto something.
Tarantino’s vitriol hasn’t reached the same levels as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, because, unlike them, he’s watched a lot of spandex-clad blockbusters. He was one of the few who enjoyed the Joker sequel, he thinks Thor: Ragnarok is the pinnacle of Marvel’s cinematic universe, and he was weirdly obsessed with Superman Returns for a minute.
If he was asked to name his favourite actor who’s ever played Spider-Man, he would most likely go for Nicholas Hammond, who squeezed himself into the costume for the short-lived 1970s TV series. After all, he was cast as Sam Wanamaker in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Tarantino isn’t someone who’d hire a guy that peaked by the dawn of the 1980s if he wasn’t familiar with their work.
As for the movies? There’s plenty to choose from. In addition to Hammond’s feature-length pilot episode, the role has been inhabited by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland, and Shameik Moore, with Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day currently in production, which will be the 14th film starring the friendly neighbourhood superhero to release in cinemas since 2002.
During a conversation with Bertrand Tavernier, where the late French filmmaker opined that “it’s worrisome to see the American cinema start to go the way of the comic book,” he cited Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 as one of the high points, a sentiment Tarantino completely agreed with.
“You just said something significant,” he responded. “You cited Spider-Man 2 and not 1. In Spider-Man 1, the first part is successful. You could tell that the director had grown up reading the original comic book. We get that feeling because Sam Raimi really loves Spider-Man, the comic book. The second part of the first film is just a superhero film.”
Ironically, Tarantino’s appreciation for the sequel is almost completely at odds with his view on modern-day comic book flicks. He’s called the people who direct them hired hands who don’t get the opportunity to imprint the movie with their own identifiable style, which is the exact reason he prefers Raimi’s follow-up.
“In comparison, Spider-Man 2 is all good, you know why?” he asked, rhetorically, of course. “The first part brought in enough money to give Sam Raimi the permission to do whatever he wanted with the second one. And he did it even better.” He’s not wrong, with Maguire’s second outing superior to the first, and a damn sight better than the third, which was spoiled by studio interference.
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