When Sony’s reboot The Amazing Spider-Man opened this summer, much was made about the fact that the finished film left out plenty of footage that was teased in the trailers.  It wasn’t simply that the theatrical release was missing a few scenes here and there, but it was pretty obvious that a good chunk of the background on Peter Parker’s parents and Parker’s true origin (ie. “The Untold Story”) had been excised in favor of letting that storyline play out over a trilogy of films.

Director Marc Webb, Andrew Garfield, and Emma Stone are all poised to return for the sequel, with Shailene Woodley possibly playing Mary Jane Watson, and now the first film is getting ready to hit Blu-ray and DVD.  The home video release will include a number of deleted scenes, and a few of them have popped up online a bit early, revealing some of Parker’s origin story that was cut.  Hit the jump to take a look.

Things are heating up for the Amazing Spider-Man sequel.  Just a couple of weeks ago we got confirmation that Marc Webb is returning to direct with Andrew Garfield confirmed to reprise his Spidey role and Emma Stone expected to come back as Gwen Stacy.  It was all but assumed that comics love interest Mary Jane Watson would come into play in the follow-up, and now it appears that Webb and co. have settled on the actress to tackle the iconic character: The Descendants star Shailene Woodley.  Hit the jump for much more on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 including possible villains and the appearance of a fan-favorite character.

The Spider-Man reboot The Amazing Spider-Man was a sizeable hit this summer at the box office, but the film was surrounded by an air of production troubles.  The film was only director Marc Webb’s second feature, and was a huge step up from his swell but small-scale debut (500) Days of Summer.  A fair amount of reshoots took place, and when the film hit theaters we saw that much of the footage from the film’s marketing (including the entire “Untold Story” storyline) had been removed from the finished pic.

Sony hired Transformers and Star Trek scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to rewrite the script for a sequel before the first film came out, but Webb’s involvement in the follow-up was less clear.  Though many assumed another director would be brought in to helm a more commercial (ie. action-centric) sequel, it now looks like Webb is coming back after all with his leads in tow.  Hit the jump for more.

As much as I enjoy film, my first entertainment love will always be music. As such, this weekend finds me in Chicago in anticipation of what could be my final Warped Tour appearance. That’s right, I’m a 26 year-old man (I use the term “man” lightly, of course) who still finds immense joy in the pop-punk genre. Nevertheless, it’s becoming harder and harder for my oldness to blend in with a predominantly sub-18 crowd without looking like a total creep and, therefore, today may very well be my last Warped experience. On the bright side, I still have XBox Live to remind me that I’ve never completely grown up.

Maturity issues aside, on tap in this week’s version of the Top 5 is a slew of interviews for The Amazing Spider-Man, the first trailer and new images for Tom Cruise‘s Jack Reacher, our most anticipated movies from July to September, Savages interviews with Oliver Stone, Blake Lively, etc., and more The Dark Knight Rises coverage than most humans are capable of comprehending. Links and brief recaps for each reside after the break.

Amongst the massive amount of unbridled enthusiasm for The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, it seemed for a bit that Sony’s reboot The Amazing Spider-Man might hit theaters with little fanfare.  The pic finally premiered this past Tuesday to a record-setting $35 million and fairly positive reviews, and though we won’t know the full box office impact until later this weekend, the film is certainly off to a promising start.  With a healthy box office take, a sequel for The Amazing Spider-Man is all but guaranteed (writers were recently hired to perform a rewrite of James Vanderbilt’s follow-up screenplay).  Now an official message from Sony confirms what we already knew: The Amazing Spider-Man is the first in a planned trilogy.

Hit the jump for much more, including evidence that a great deal of Spidey’s origin was cut out of The Amazing Spider-Man at the last minute, and the possible inclusion of the Sinister Six in further films.  Beware, MAJOR SPOILERS for The Amazing Spider-Man follow.

Several weeks ago, Sony Pictures invited us to attend the press junket The Amazing Spider-Man.  The reboot takes a grittier, more realistic approach to Peter Parker’s journey to becoming your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and sees the wall-crawler struggling to come to grips with the mysterious disappearance of his parents.  For more on the film, click here for all of our previous coverage.

During my on-camera interview with Martin Sheen, who plays Uncle Ben, we talked his experience working with Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), the blockbuster feel on set, his thoughts on Spawn, and what it was like being on The West Wing during the Aaron Sorkin years and after Sorkin left the show.  Hit the jump to check out the interview, and click on the corresponding links for my interviews with co-stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans and Denis Leary. The Amazing Spider-Man opens in 3D on July 3rd.

Director Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man is primed for a big Fourth of July weekend opening, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking ahead.  In a recent interview, Webb talked about potential sequels for the superhero film, saying that he departed from canon just enough to allow successive iterations to “withstand…[and] anticipate future storylines.”  Who does Webb think would be a good villain for Spidey in the future?  Well, he does stress that Spider-Man already has an impressive rogues gallery, but also suggested an original villain of his own creation.  You can find out who that would be after the jump.

The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Sally Field and Denis Leary opens July 3rd.

The Amazing Spider-Man is intended to be a new origin story about a powerless kid who got superpowers and became hero.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t know which origin story to tell, nor does it understand what it means to be “powerless”.  Wrapped up in the notion of being “grittier” and “realistic”, Marc Webb‘s reboot attempts to spin a fresh new vision for the wall-crawler, but it constantly forgets the story its trying to tell by getting tangled up in lazy coincidences and idiotic character motivations.  The film’s problems are further compounded by the woefully miscast Andrew Garfield, who carries the sweet, good-hearted nature of Peter Parker, but none of the powerlessness that makes us root for him.  What works in the film—the visuals, set pieces, the performances, and the score—work wonderfully, but everything else in the movie is far from amazing.

Several weeks ago, Sony Pictures invited us to attend the press junket The Amazing Spider-Man.  The reboot takes a grittier, more realistic approach to Peter Parker’s journey to becoming your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and sees the wall-crawler struggling to come to grips with the mysterious of disappearance of his parents.  For more on the film, click here for all of our previous coverage.

During my on-camera interview with Andrew Garfield, who plays Peter Parker/Spider-Man, we talked about why he connected with the comic books and the character, how the finished film compared to what he envisioned when he first read the script, the experience of putting on the costume for the first time, and what villains he’d like to fight in the sequels.  Hit the jump to check out the interview.  The Amazing Spider-Man opens in 3D on July 3rd.

With The Amazing Spider-Man opening next week on July 3rd, you may feel like you’ve seen the entire movie through the recent marketing barrage.  Well, you have seen about twenty-five minutes of it, because someone’s gone through the trouble of editing all the footage together into a mini-film for your viewing pleasure.  Add to it a new clip, TV spot and featurette and you can watch nearly a third of The Amazing Spider-Man without paying a dime.  Check out all of our previous coverage for The Amazing Spider-Man here.

Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Sally Field and Denis Leary, opens in 3D on July 3rd.  Hit the jump to check out the new clip, TV spot, featurette and 25 minutes of footage.

Early reviews are in for the overseas release of The Amazing Spider-Man and so far they are generally positive.  The common theme seems to be broad support for Andrew Garfield’s performance as Peter Parker, lending a nervier version to the highschooler than Tobey Maguire’s character.  Reviewers also praised Emma Stone, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Denis Leary and, to an extent, Rhys Ifans for their performances, but decried the narrative for being a bit thin and lacking dimension.  Interestingly, The Amazing Spider-Man is coming across as more of a romantic drama with action elements than an action movie with a love interest thrown in; this observation was taken to the extreme with one reviewer calling it, “the superhero film for the Twilight generation.”  Hit the jump for much more from the early reviews.

What better way to celebrate the first game of the NBA finals than with a basketball-themed clip from The Amazing Spider-Man?  This new clip shows Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker putting his new Spidey powers to good fun use by taunting Chris Zylka’s Flash Thompson on the basketball court.  It’s a neat little scene that hopefully highlights some of the playfulness we’ll see from Garfield’s Parker in the finished film.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The film also stars Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Martin Sheen, Sally Field and Denis Leary.  The Amazing Spider-Man opens in 3D on July 3rd.  Oh, and Thunder Up.

A few new bits of marketing from The Amazing Spider-Man have now gone online.  Two TV spots highlight the “vigilante” aspect of Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man as well as the web-swinging action, while a new featurette focuses on Rhys Ifans’s villain The Lizard.  The latter is interesting in that it gives us our first taste of what it looks/sounds like when The Lizard speaks.  I’m still wary of the villain being made up entirely of CGI, and this featurette doesn’t exactly ease my concerns.  It’s possible that The Lizard plays better in context, but there still seems to be a disconnect in this featurette with the antagonist; he looks like a computer animated character, therefore he doesn’t feel very threatening.

Hit the jump to take a look at the TV spots and featurette.  The film also stars Emma Stone, Denis Leary, Martin Sheen and Sally Field.  The Amazing Spider-Man opens in 3D on July 3rd.

Andrew Garfield is set to swing into action in Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man when it debuts July 3rd, but how did they make all that web-swinging action come to life?  Sony has released about 25 minutes of B-roll footage that shows the behind-the-scenes workings of the production.  Sure, this clip of Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) being all heroic is nice and it’s fun to watch Spidey swing away from pursuing cops with the greatest of ease, but the impressive “making of” footage really shows off the physical demand that was required.  It’s definitely worth a watch for you web-heads who just can’t get enough.  The B-roll also features Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Chris Zylka and some awesome stunt performers.  Hit the jump to check it out.

A new clip from The Amazing Spider-Man has gone online, and I like to think it’s called “Gymnast Spidey.”  Said clip highlights a lot of the practical effects work that director Marc Webb and the producers have been touting, and it’s definitely obvious that a lot of the web swinging here was done practically.  If some of these shots look familiar, it’s because much of this sequence was captured via a bevy of web swinging set photos.  Though it seems like Spidey has been overshadowed quite a bit by the big, dark elephant in the room, I’m looking forward to seeing Webb’s visuals and the take that talented star Andrew Garfield has on the character.  Moreover, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey makes the film doubling enticing.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The film also stars Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Martin Sheen and Sally Field.  The Amazing Spider-Man opens in 3D on July 3^rd.  [Update: We added a second clip after the jump.]