Live Magazine June Edition - Spider-Man!

ecause superheroes already
exist in this world. The Avengers
exist. So we don’t have to
tell any of that story. We can
just have fun with “what if a
15-year-old became a superhero?”
What would that be like?
But I mean he still has to shoot
webs. That’s like that’s about it
– he’s got to shoot webs.
Q: When you started on
Homecoming, did you make
a list of things that you were
not going to do? And then
were there things that are
just so inherent to Spider-
Man that you knew you would
have to include, and would
just have to come up with a
more clever way to incorporate
them into your version?
Watts: That’s what we tried to
do with everything. Like if anything
seemed familiar, we tried
to come up with something else.
The reason to make this movie
is to show people things they’ve
never seen before and to take
them on a journey that they’ve
never been on before. So that
was actually a great creative
limitation, to make everything
new. Spider-Man still had to
shoot webs and swing around
every once in awhile, but then
you would come up with, well,
what haven’t we seen Spider-
Man do? Let’s take away buildings.
Let’s throw him in the suburbs
and see what he has to do,
if he has to go from rooftop to
rooftop. Or send him to Washington
DC, make him climb
up the side of the Washington
Monument. What are you going
to do then when there’s only
one building? What’s that going
to look like? So that was the fun
challenge, to just keep trying
to come up with something we
haven’t seen before and keep
pushing that.
Q: What was your first experience
with Spider-Man? Was
there specific material that
helped shape the landscape
of the world your Spider-Man
was going to inhabit?
Watts: Well, I immediately just
went back and started reading
the comics from the very beginning
when I got the job, [and]
that was just a great cornerstone
for what we were trying
to build because it’s a reminder
of why Spider-Man became so
popular in the first place. And
sure all these other people are
dealing with these life threatening
or world threatening stakes,
but one of the first things that
Peter Parker does in the comics
is he goes to try and join
the Fantastic Four because he
needs to make some money.
It’s just problems that a teen
would have. So that was a great
starting off point just in terms of
the tone, because it was funny
and irreverent and just its own
unique perspective. And in
terms of the visual language,
I just was trying to apply my
style to this universe and again
keeping with this whole groundlevel
perspective. I wanted this
movie [to be] on the ground
with Peter; it’s like you’re up in
the clouds with Tony, and now
here you are down in the dirt
with Peter.
Q: How tough was it to find
your own way of depicting