Development Following the release of
Sam Raimi's
Spider-Man 3 (2007),
Sony Pictures Entertainment announced a May 6, 2011 release date for the next film in
the series. By this time,
James Vanderbilt,
David Lindsay-Abaire and
Gary Ross had written several screenplays for the film, which were rejected by Raimi.
Alvin Sargent, who co-wrote
Spider-Man 2 and
Spider-Man 3, was working on yet another script. On January 11, 2010,
Columbia Pictures and
Marvel Studios announced that instead of continuing the Raimi series, they were rebooting the series with a new cast and crew.
Deadline Hollywood reported that Raimi had pulled out of the project, and the studio did not want to continue the series without him. Additionally,
Avi Arad felt that the writers had not produced a story of sufficient quality to warrant a continuation of the Raimi series. According to Tolmach, the producers felt the core story of Spider-Man was that of a boy becoming a man, which could be depicted again in the reboot. Tolmach, now president of Columbia Pictures, and
Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, sought a director who could give sharp focus to Peter Parker's life.
Kathryn Bigelow and
David Fincher were considered for the job before Marc Webb was selected. Webb had recently made his directorial debut with
500 Days of Summer (2009). Webb praised Raimi's version of the Spider-Man character and said it was a challenging precedent to follow. He did not want to tell another story with Raimi's version of the character, but instead wanted to present a new version of Spider-Man. He later said that the world of
The Amazing Spider-Man was influenced by the
Ultimate Spider-Man comic series, but was also dreamed up by the filmmakers. The finalized screenplay was written by Vanderbilt and Sargent, with contributions from
Steve Kloves and
Paul Feig.
Casting Peter Parker / Spider-Man Before Andrew Garfield was cast as Spider-Man, other actors were considered for the role, including
Michael Angarano,
Drake Bell,
Jamie Bell,
Frank Dillane,
Alden Ehrenreich,
Josh Hutcherson,
Aaron Johnson,
Joe Jonas,
Logan Lerman and
Anton Yelchin. On July 1, 2010, it was announced that the role would go to Garfield, who said he calmed his anxiety about getting the part by pretending he was auditioning for a
Spider-Man short film made by his friends. The film's director, Marc Webb, said that Garfield brought humor, emotional weight and physicality to the role. Garfield and Emma Stone were screen-tested together, and Webb said there was instant chemistry between them; they began dating while shooting the film. Garfield described Peter as someone he can relate to, and said the character had been an important influence on him since he was a young boy. To prepare for the role, he studied the movements of both athletes and spiders, and incorporated spider-like movements into his performance of Peter, even when the character is not wearing his Spider-Man suit. Garfield practiced
yoga and
Pilates in order to be as flexible as possible. He said the physical training for the role was demanding and exhausting; he had three different stunt doubles during filming. Garfield admitted to shedding a tear when he first wore the Spider-Man costume, and that he tried to imagine a "better" actor in the suit, because seeing himself as Spider-Man did not make sense to him. He said the suit was uncomfortable and that he was not allowed to wear anything underneath except underwear, because it was skintight. Webb described
The Amazing Spider-Man as "a story about a kid who grows up looking for his father and finds himself." Both Webb and Garfield described Peter as an outsider, with Webb noting that in the early
Spider-Man comics, his outsider status was defined by him being a nerdy "science whiz". Webb said that because the idea of "what a nerd is" has changed, and because "nerds" are now "running the world", a challenge of the film was how to define Peter's outsider status in a contemporary context. Garfield tried to capture how Peter "copes with the feelings of being an underdog, his confusions and his self-doubt" in an attempt to bring "a certain empathy and sensitivity to his character that explains how it helps him become the hero". He said that Peter goes through normal struggles that most people experience, and described him as "a very inspiring, aspirational character that symbolizes goodness—and how difficult it is to be good".
Gwen Stacy In September 2010, it was reported that Sony was casting two female lead roles, leading to speculation that both
Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy would appear in the film. However,
The Wrap reported in November that Mary Jane was never in the script. Candidates for the role of Gwen included
Dianna Agron,
Lily Collins,
Georgina Haig,
Ophelia Lovibond,
Dominique McElligott,
Imogen Poots and
Mia Wasikowska. By early October, Emma Stone had been chosen for the role, due in large part to her chemistry with Garfield. When preparing for the role, Ifans purposely did not read many of the
Spider-Man comics. When designing the Lizard, Webb chose not to give him a lizard snout, as he wanted him to appear human as well as monstrous, and be able to convey emotions.
Other characters In November,
Denis Leary accepted the role of George Stacy, and Martin Sheen was confirmed for the role of Uncle Ben. Sheen described Ben as a surrogate father for Peter, and Webb praised Sheen for bringing a "benevolent authority" to the role. Webb sought to portray Ben as a
blue-collar man, whose outlook on life was different from the science-inclined Peter. Webb found it interesting to explore the differences between Peter and his aunt and uncle. Sally Field said she took the role of Aunt May as a favor to her friend
Laura Ziskin, because she knew it would be Ziskin's last film (Ziskin died in 2011). Webb praised Field for bringing "genuine affection" to the role. Webb was a fan of Khan after watching the series, along with Khan's films
The Namesake and
The Warrior.
Design Webb felt a responsibility to reinvent Spider-Man. One departure from the preceding trilogy was to have Spider-Man build artificial web-shooters, as he does in the comics. Webb explained that the web-shooters in
The Amazing Spider-Man were meant to showcase Peter's intelligence. The crew also redesigned Spider-Man's costume for the film, in an attempt to make Peter's body appear "longer and more lithe, more of an acrobat, someone incredibly agile". Webb wanted it to be apparent that the costume and web-shooters were things that Peter constructed himself. The crew created multiple different Spider-Man suits for various lighting conditions.
Filming was filmed both on the bridge itself and on a Los Angeles soundstage, where a 150-foot piece of the bridge was constructed.
Principal photography for
The Amazing Spider-Man occurred in Los Angeles and New York City. Filming began on December 6, 2010. Locations in Los Angeles included the
Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood, the gym of
St. John Bosco High School,
Immanuel Presbyterian Church in
Mid-Wilshire, and various locations around
South Pasadena,
San Pedro and
Woodland Hills. In New York, the
Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House served as the exterior for
NYPD headquarters, while an apartment on Manhattan's
Upper West Side was used as the exterior of the Stacy family home. A row of houses on Fuller Place in the Brooklyn neighborhood of
Windsor Terrace stood in for the
Forest Hills, Queens neighborhood of Ben and May Parker. A web-swinging stunt sequence was filmed along the
Riverside Drive Viaduct in
Harlem. Principal photography wrapped in May 2011, with reshoots taking place in New York that November and in Los Angeles in December. For action sequences involving Spider-Man, Webb relied more on stunt performers than previous
Spider-Man films, which had used extensive CGI to create the character's superhuman movements. To determine how Spider-Man should look when swinging from his webs, stunt coordinator Andy Armstrong studied the movements of an
Olympic gymnast. Garfield performed many of his own stunts, which required him to undertake rigorous physical training and lessons in
parkour. The crew spent months creating rigs that would allow Garfield and his stunt doubles to swing in a way that was not computer-generated. The "decay rate algorithm" featured in the film was inspired by the real-life
Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality. The fight scene in the subway car was influenced by the physical comedy in the films of
Charlie Chaplin and
Buster Keaton.
Visual effects Initially,
The Amazing Spider-Man was going to be filmed in 2D, then
converted to 3D during
post-production. However, with the help of the 3D technology company
3ality Technica, the decision was made at the last minute to shoot the film in 3D instead.
Sony Pictures Imageworks was responsible for a digital touch-up of the film.
Music Webb wanted a musical score that blended grandeur with intimacy, and
James Horner was enlisted for the task. In a review of the score for
AllMusic, James Christopher Monger said Horner's soundtrack lacks "the pulsating gravitas" of Danny Elfman's score for the 2002 film
Spider-Man, but evokes similar feelings. He described the score as "[m]easured, quietly grand, and at times a little old-fashioned", and felt that it focuses more on the human relationships in the film than the action sequences. The film's
soundtrack album was released under the
Sony Classical label. == Themes and inspirations ==