Spider-Man Director Talks Of 'Reinventing' Marvel Hero

Marc Webb has said that he feels the need to re-invent Spider-Man.

Webb takes over directorial duties on the franchise from Sam Raimi in The Amazing Spider-Man.

He told the Los Angeles Times: "I feel we have certain obligations to the iconography of Spider-Man, which is based mostly in the comics. The other thing is Spider-Man has a lot of different incarnations in the comics. While there are certain mainstays - a kid who gets bitten by a spider, he’s an outsider, the death of his Uncle Ben helps endow [him] with the mentality of a hero - those things remain the same but there’s also room for interpretation. He’s been around since the 1960s. The wealth of material here - whether it’s story or character - is really profound but I also feel it’s my responsibility to reinvent it in some ways."

When asked how that would show itself in the film, Webb explained: "Peter Parker is a science whiz. If you look back to the early Stan Lee and Steve Ditko comics, he’s a nerd with big glasses. The idea of what a nerd is has changed in 40 or 50 years. Nerds are running the world. Andrew Garfield made a movie [The Social Network] about it.

"Nerds are no longer pariahs and knowing how to write computer code is longer a [mocked] quality. What was important in those early comics was this notion that Peter Parker is an outsider and how we define that in a contemporary context.  That, I think, was one of the challenges for us - getting Peter Parker’s outsider status to be current."

Webb continued: "Peter Parker is a real kid. He’s not a billionaire. He’s not an alien. He’s a kid who gets picked on and gets shoved to the outside. The 90-pound weakling, that’s who Spider-Man is when he gets bit. So much of the DNA of the character is the fact that he was a kid when he got bit. He is imperfect, he is immature and has a bit of a punk rock instinct. In his soul he’s still a 90-pound weakling even after [the transformative bite]."

Andrew Garfield replaces Tobey Maguire in the titular role.

The Amazing Spider-Man is released on July 3, 2012.