While James Franco is making it public knowledge that he thought "The Amazing Spider-Man" was unnecessary, Paul Giamatti has just been confirmed to be playing Aleksei Mikhailovich Sytsevich in the sequel. Sytsevich is a low-life thug who eventually becomes the unstoppable Rhino.
There was already a lot of speculation after Jamie Foxx was confirmed to be portraying Electro in the sequel and everyone seemed excited when Dane DeHaan ("Chronicle," "Lawless") signed on as Harry Osborn. With the extra addition of Rhino it makes you wonder if the sequel to "The Amazing Spider-Man" is planting some serious seeds for future villains in upcoming sequels or if they're going to make the mistake of trying to cram too many villains in one movie like "Spider-Man 3."
MTV recently talked to Franco who had this to say about "The Amazing Spider-Man:"
"Meh, they could've strayed a little bit more from the original [film]. Why [make the movie]? Well, I guess they made a lot of money. Okay, congrats. Good for them. Sam [Raimi] and I moved on, we made 'Oz.'"
You can't really argue with Franco. Slightly altering Peter's origins wasn't enough to make "The Amazing Spider-Man" all that different from Sam Raimi's original "Spider-Man" film. Andrew Garfield is a more satisfying Peter Parker/Spider-Man than Tobey Maguire was, the entire cast was pretty superb in general, and most of the action scenes were really well done. Peter's story seemed a lot more tragic in comparison to the 2002 film, but Spider-Man blowing off finding the killer of Uncle Ben so quickly felt extremely sloppy. It makes you wonder why they didn't just jump into a story where Peter already had his powers and Spider-Man was already a well-established identity. Why waste the time of the audience when there's only a five year gap between the last film of the original franchise and the new rebooted film? Despite being one of the few people who defends "The Amazing Spider-Man" and thoroughly enjoying it, redoing Spider-Man's origin does seem pretty redundant.
Marc Webb is set to return as director for "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." Actors Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Sally Field, and even Martin Sheen (in what is said to be a flashback or dream sequence or set of sequences) are all set to return, as well. In addition to Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, and Paul Giamatti joining the cast, Shailene Woodley ("The Descendants") will be playing Mary Jane Watson and Felicity Jones ("Like Crazy") is in negotiations to join the cast for a mystery role. "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" is set to start filming in February and will be released May 2, 2014.
Sources: worstpreviews.com, imdb.com, livingincinema.com, ontheredcarpet.com, canadianonlinegamers.com, tumblr.com
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