| Directed by | Sam Raimi |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Avi Arad Laura Ziskin |
| Screenplay by | Alvin Sargent |
| Story by | Alfred Gough Miles Millar Michael Chabon |
| Based on | Spider-Man by Stan Lee Steve Ditko |
| Starring | Tobey Maguire Kirsten Dunst James Franco Alfred Molina Rosemary Harris Donna Murphy |
| Music by | Danny Elfman |
| Cinematography | Bill Pope |
| Editing by | Bob Murawski |
| Studio | Marvel Enterprises Laura Ziskin Productions |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Running time | 128 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $200 million |
| Box office | $783,766,341[1] |
Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi and written by Alvin Sargent from a story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Michael Chabon. The sequel to the 2002 film Spider-Man, it is the second film in Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy based on the fictional Marvel Comics character of the same name. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco reprise their roles as Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn, respectively.
Set two years after the events of Spider-Man, the film focuses on Peter Parker struggling to manage both his personal life and his duties as Spider-Man. Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), who takes a turn for the diabolical following a failed experiment and the death of his wife. Using his mechanical tentacles, Octavius is dubbed "Doctor Octopus" and threatens to endanger the lives of the people of New York City. Spider-Man must stop him from annihilating the city.
Spider-Man 2 was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters on June 30, 2004, and received critical acclaim. It frequently ranks among the best superhero films of all time. It grossed over $783 million worldwide and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. It also received five awards at the Saturn Awards ceremony including Best Fantasy Film and Best Director for Raimi. The film's success led to Spider-Man 3, released in 2007.
Plot
Peter Parker struggles to balance his crime-fighting duties as Spider-Man with the demands of his normal life. Parker is estranged from both love interest Mary Jane Watson and best friend Harry Osborn, who still bears a hateful grudge against Spider-Man. Harry insists that Spider-Man murdered his father, Norman Osborn. His obligations as Spider-Man bear a burden on his ability to focus on his academic life as well as his financial situation. As a result, Peter starts to think about giving up being Spider-Man.Harry, now head of Oscorp's research division, sponsors the research of brilliant nuclear scientist Otto Octavius. Octavius, who dreams of perfecting fusion power, wears a harness of powerful robotic arms with artificial intelligence for an experiment in sustained fusion. Though the experiment succeeds at first, it quickly becomes unstable. Despite this, Octavius stubbornly refuses to shut it down, before Spider-Man intervenes, resulting in several disasters; Octavius' wife is killed, the neural inhibitor chip which prevents the arms from influencing his mind is fried, and the arms are fused to his spine. Unconscious, he is taken to a hospital, but before the operation can commence, the tentacles, having developed their own artificial intelligence with the inhibitor chip destroyed, savagely kill the entire medical crew. The tentacles corrupt Octavius' mind, and lead him to the resolution that he must complete his experiment regardless of the moral cost. To finance his work, Octavius - now called Doctor Octopus or "Doc Ock" - robs a bank, where he takes Aunt May hostage. When Doc Ock was about to stab Spider-Man with his spear, Aunt May smashes his temple with her umbrella, sparing Spider-Man, but Doc Ock drops her from a building. Spider-Man manages to save his aunt, but Ock returns to his lair with loot stolen from the bank.
During a party, Peter learns that Mary Jane is engaged to Jameson's son, renowned astronaut John Jameson, and gets into a fight with Harry (who is drunk) over his "loyalty" to Spider-Man. As Ock rebuilds his experimental reactor, Peter's powers prove unreliable. After a doctor tells him that his physical problems are due to mental stress, he finally gives up being Spider-Man and throws away his costume in the garbage. During this time, Peter begins to excel in college, while at the same time, also begins to mend his relationship with Mary Jane.
A garbage man brings Spider-Man's discarded costume to sell at the Daily Bugle. J. Jonah Jameson takes credit for Spider-Man's disappearance, but later admits that he was indeed a hero, and the only person capable of stopping Ock. Peter, out of guilt, tells Aunt May that it was his fault for Uncle Ben's death. After Peter tells his aunt everything from the thief to Uncle Ben's death, Aunt May retreats to her room in shock. Later, Aunt May forgives Peter and advises him that sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice one's dreams for the greater good. Realizing that the city's need for Spider-Man is greater than his personal ambitions, Peter decides to become Spider-Man once again. Even so, his powers continue to be lost.
Ock, having restored his project, needs tritium for his reactor, and goes to Harry to get it. Harry agrees to give Octavius all the tritium he possesses in exchange for bringing Spider-Man to him, and tells him that Peter, who is supposedly good friends with Spider-Man, is the key to finding him; however, he tells Ock not to harm Peter. Ock finds Peter and tells him to find Spider-Man, and abducts Mary Jane in the process. Following this, Peter finds that his powers have been restored, and he dons his costume again after stealing it back from the Bugle. Angered by his "stolen" costume, Jameson once again continues his role to denounce Spider-Man as a menace.
Spider-Man then proceeds to battle Ock across town. Eventually, they battle on a train which Ock disables. Spider-Man attempts to stop the runaway train - successfully saving everyone on board. When people on the train see him unmasked, they are shocked to see that he is only a young man. Two boys hand Peter his mask and promise not to reveal his true identity. Ock returns, knocks Spider-Man out, and delivers him to Harry.
After giving Ock the tritium, Harry unmasks Spider-Man and is horrified to see his best friend. Peter regains consciousness and convinces Harry to reveal Ock's location, so he can save Mary Jane and the city. Spider-Man makes his way to Ock's waterfront laboratory, with the doctor putting the finishing touches on his makeshift reactor. Although Spider-Man attempts to rescue Mary Jane discreetly, Ock catches on and they fight once more. Spider-Man ultimately subdues Ock and reveals his identity to him, pleading for a way to stop the reactor. Free from the tentacles' AI, Octavius uses his mechanical arms to collapse the building, successfully drowning the reactor at the cost of his own life. Mary Jane sees Peter unmasked and understands that as long as he is Spider-Man, she and Peter cannot be together. Spider-Man returns Mary Jane to John and leaves.
Harry has visions of his father in a hanging mirror telling him to avenge his father's death and shatters it, revealing a secret room containing the Green Goblin's equipment. Meanwhile, Mary Jane is getting ready for her wedding, but quickly leaves and goes to Peter's apartment. She tells Peter that she wants to be with him no matter what. After a passionate kiss, there is a sudden call for help and Mary Jane encourages Spider-Man to respond, quietly apprehensive of the dangers they are about to face as a couple.
Cameos
Bruce Campbell cameos as an obnoxious usher who denies Peter access to Mary Jane's play when he is late, thus causing a rift in their relationship. Spider-Man's co-creator Stan Lee cameos as a man on the street who saves a woman from falling debris during a battle between Spider-Man and Doc Ock. Evil Dead II co-writer Scott Spiegel appears as a man who attempts to eat some pizza Spider-Man is delivering, only to have it webbed from his hands. Joel McHale appears as the teller in the bank who refuses Aunt May's loan. Hal Sparks appears as the elevator passenger who has a conversation with Spider-Man. Comedian Donnell Rawlings appears as the New Yorker who exclaims that Spider-Man stole "some guy's" pizza. Bones star Emily Deschanel appears as the receptionist who tells Parker she isn't paying for the late pizza. The Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi appears as Mr. Aziz, the pizza store owner who later dismisses Parker. Actor Joey Diaz appears as a train passenger who tells Doctor Octopus that he has to get past him to get to Spider-Man. Actress Vanessa Ferlito appears as one of Mary Jane's co-stars. Model/Actress Joy Bryant makes a cameo appearance as a spectator that witnesses Spider-Man in action. Director John Landis also appears briefly as one of the doctors who operates on Doctor Octopus. Actor Phil LaMarr also appears as a train passenger who is most easily seen to the right of Spider-Man when he's holding two webs to slow the train down.Production
Development
In September 2002, Michael Chabon was hired to rewrite.[3] His draft had a younger Doc Ock, who becomes infatuated with Mary Jane. His mechanical limbs use endorphins to counteract the pain of being attached to his body, which he enjoys. When he injures two muggers on a date, this horrifies Mary Jane and in the resulting battle with Spider-Man his tentacles are fused together, and the fusion begins to kill him. In the script, Octavius is the creator of the genetically-altered spider from the first film, and gives Peter an antidote to remove his powers: this means when Octavius is dying with his tentacles, he wants to extract Spider-Man's spine to save himself. This leads to the alliance with Harry in the final film. Beforehand, Harry and the Daily Bugle put a $10 million price on Spider-Man's head, causing the city's citizens to turn against him.[14] Producer Avi Arad rejected the love triangle angle on Ock, and found Harry putting a price on Spider-Man's head unsubtle.[7]
Raimi sifted through the previous drafts by Gough, Millar, Koepp and Chabon, picking what he liked with screenwriter Alvin Sargent.[15] He felt that thematically the film had to explore Peter's conflict with his personal wants against his responsibility, exploring the positive and negatives of his chosen path, and how he ultimately decides that he can be happy as a heroic figure.[7] Raimi stated the story was partly influenced by Superman II, which also explored the titular hero giving up his responsibilities.[16] The story is mainly taken from The Amazing Spider-Man No. 50, "Spider-Man No More!" It was decided that Doc Ock would be kept as the villain, as he was both a visually interesting villain who was a physical match for Spider-Man, and a sympathetic figure with humanity.[7] Raimi changed much of the character's backstory however, adding the idea of Otto Octavius being a hero of Peter, and how their conflict was about trying to rescue him from his demons rather than kill him.[12]
Filming
Filming was put on hiatus for eight weeks, in order to build Doc Ock's pier lair. It had been Spisak's idea to use a collapsed pier as Ock's lair, reflecting an exploded version of the previous lab and representing how Octavius' life had collapsed and grown more monstrous,[7] evoking the cinema of Fritz Lang and the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.[17] Filming then resumed on that set, having taken 15 weeks to build, occupying Sony's Stage 30. It was 60 feet (18 m) by 120 feet (37 m) long, and 40 feet (12 m) high, and a quarter-scale miniature was also built for the finale as it collapses.[7] Filming was still going after Christmas 2003.[18]
A camera system called the Spydercam was used to allow filmmakers to express more of Spider-Man's world view, at times dropping 50 stories and with shot lengths of just over 2,400 feet (730 m) in New York or 3,200 feet (980 m) in Los Angeles. For some shots the camera would shoot at six frames per second for a faster playback increasing the sense of speed. Shots using the Spydercam were pre-planned in digital versions of cities, and movement of the camera was controlled with motion control, making it highly cost-effective. The camera system was only used in the previous film for the final shot.
Box office
Spider-Man 2 opened in the United States on June 30, 2004 and grossed $40.4 million in its first day; this broke the first film's opening day record of $39.4 million[22] until it was surpassed a year later by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ($50.0 million).[23] The film also broke The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's record ($34.5 million) for the highest-grossing Wednesday of all time.[24] It held the Wednesday record for three years until it was topped by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($44.2 million).[25] It's Friday-to-Sunday gross reached a total of $88,156,227, which was the highest Independence Day weekend, breaking Men in Black II's record ($52.1 million), until it was broken seven years later by Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($97.9 million).[26] In its first six days the film had grossed over $180 million.[27] The film also eventually went on to gross $373.5 million, becoming the second-highest grossing film of 2004, behind Shrek 2. Worldwide, the film grossed $783.7 million, ranking 3rd highest-grossing film of 2004 behind Shrek 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Spider-Man 2's gross is currently among the all-time top twenty grossing films in the United States and Canada.Critical reception
Spider-Man 2 received critical acclaim. Based on 243 reviews collected by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Spider-Man 2 has a 93% overall approval rating from critics, with an average score of 8.3 out of 10.[28] By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 83, based on 41 reviews.[29] The film was placed at No. 411 on Empire's top 500 movies of all time list.[30]Chicago Tribune's Mark Caro stated that Alfred Molina was a "pleasingly complex" villain, and the film as a whole "improves upon its predecessor in almost every way."[31] Kenneth Turan, of the Los Angeles Times, gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and concurred with Caro when he stated, "Doc Ock grabs this film with his quartet of sinisterly serpentine mechanical arms and refuses to let go."[32] Roger Ebert, who had given the first film only two and a half stars, gave Spider-Man 2 a perfect four out of four stars, calling it "The best superhero movie since the modern genre was launched with Superman (1978)", and praising the film for "effortlessly [combining] special effects and a human story, keeping its parallel plots alive and moving."[33] He later called it the fourth best film of 2004."[34] IGN's Richard George felt "Sam Raimi and his writing team delivered an iconic, compelling version of Spider-Man's classic foe... We almost wish there was a way to retroactively add some of these elements to the original character."[35]
Conversely, J. Hoberman, of The Village Voice, thought the first half of the film was "talky bordering on tiresome", with the film often stopping to showcase Raimi's idea of humor.[36] Charles Taylor believed, "The script's miscalculation of Peter's decision feeds into the pedestrian quality of Raimi's direction and into Maguire's weightlessness... [Maguire] simply does not suggest a heroic presence", and suggested that "Dunst appears to be chafing against strictures she cannot articulate."[37]
Awards and nominations
Main article: List of accolades received by the Spider-Man film series
Spider-Man 2 won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for Best Sound Mixing (Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Joseph Geisinger) and Best Sound Editing, but lost to Ray and The Incredibles, respectively.[38] The film won Saturn Awards for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Fantasy Film, Best Special Effects, and Best Writer, while being nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Music.[39] It was nominated for two BAFTA awards for Special Visual Effects and Sound, but lost to The Day After Tomorrow and Ray, respectively.[40] AFI listed the movie as one of the 10 best films of 2004,[41] and nominated it for positions on the lists of the top 10 fantasy films,[42] the 100 most inspiring American movies,[43] and the 100 greatest American movies.[44] Spider-Man 2 topped Rotten Tomatoes's list of the best-reviewed comic book movies of all time, beating out X2: X-Men United, Batman Begins and Superman.[45] It would remain the highest rated superhero film until the release of Iron Man (94%) and The Dark Knight (94%) and currently ties with The Avengers for second best reviewed superhero film both at 93%. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named it the No. 21 greatest action movie of all time.[46]Home media
The film was initially released on DVD as a 2-disc special edition on November 30, 2004. It was available in both anamorphic widescreen and letterboxed widescreen, as well as a Superbit edition and in a box-set with the first film. There was also a collector's edition including a reprint of The Amazing Spider-Man #50.[47]An extended cut of the film, with eight minutes of new footage, was released as Spider-Man 2.1 on DVD and Blu-ray on April 17, 2007 and on October 30, 2007. In addition to the new cut, the DVD also included new special features not on the original release, as well as a sneak preview of Spider-Man 3.[48]
The film was released on the Blu-ray high definition format in October 2007 as a part of the Spider-Man: The High Definition Trilogy box set. It was also released separately on Blu-ray in November 2010 as well as the previous film as part of Sony's Blu-ray Essentials Collection.[49] The Spider-Man trilogy was re-released on Blu-ray with a different audio transfer on June 12, 2012.
