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Post by kg redhead on Dec 5, 2005 6:18:09 GMT -5
Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire) can't seem to catch any kind of break. Being Spiderman has brought him nothing but problems as far as his personal life is concerned. Not only that, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) is engaged to astronaut John Jameson, and Peter may lose her forever. Things are so bad for him that he is pushed past his breaking point, so he decides that he doesn't want to be Spiderman anymore, until a freak accident transforms Dr. Otto Octavius into Dr. Octopus, a super-villian with four metal tentacles coming out of him. Peter realizes that only Spiderman can stop him, but of course, problems arise. Mary Jane gets caught in the middle, and Harry Osborn, who still blames Spiderman for the death of his father, Norman Osborn, also the Green Goblin, wants him dead. Spiderman will have to push himself past his limits if he's going to survive.
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Post by kg redhead on Dec 5, 2005 6:22:33 GMT -5
Sam Raimi officially signed on to direct on 1 April 2002, more than a month before the first film opened.
For a scene featuring fighting on the exterior of a subway train amidst a crowd of skyscrapers, portions of this film were filmed in Chicago, Illinois, on the famous elevated Loop standing in for New York City's 9th St. El in Manhattan, torn down in 1940, with routes transferred to underground subway lines. Chicago El trains were made up to appear as R-train cars, complete with MTA New York City Subway decals and "Bay Ridge" on their destination boards, even though the shots of the buildings are those of Lexington Avenue - including the balcony bridge that connects parts of Hunter College - where the 4, 5, and 6 trains run.
Filming began before an official script was completed.
Robert De Niro, Sam Neill, Ed Harris, and Chris Cooper were all considered for the role of Otto Octavius.
Tobey Maguire's participation was in doubt at one point because he was suffering severe back pains. Jake Gyllenhaal, was lined up to play Spider-Man and had already begun preparation, but Maguire decided to take part after all. However, according to the DVD commentary, the "My back!" joke after Peter falls from the roof was purely coincidental, as it was written into the script before Maguire's problem arose.
35 Spider-Man costumes were used during the filming.
Bruce Campbell was originally slated to fill the role of Dr. Connors. Consequently, an early draft of the script, with Campbell cast as Dr. Connors, called for the Lizard to make an appearance toward the end of the film, to which Doctor Octopus, knowing that Spider-man is Peter, would have tried to help him subdue the Lizard. That angle was dropped because Raimi, if he is on to direct the next film, plans on using the Lizard as the primary villain (alongside Harry Osborn as the next Green Goblin), and did not want the villain to simply be a minor nuisance. Raimi also knew that most people would immediately recognize Bruce Campbell, and recall his comical performance from the first film as the wrestling promoter, and he did not want Dr. Connors to be a recycled actor.
The noise we hear whenever the spider web touches something (walls, Doctor Octopus, etc.) was made by hitting tape from a cassette and leather stripes on the floor.
EASTER EGG: On the second disc of the DVD, got to the Gallery section and press up. Spidey-Sense will appear around Spider-Man's head. Click it to access a hidden movie of Doc Ock doing "Fiddler On The Roof".
In one scene, Peter asks Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) if she's still in the village. Kirsten Dunst dropped out of The Village (2004) to make this movie and Elizabethtown (2005).
The two boys who hand Spider-Man his mask on the train are Tobey Maguire's half-brothers Weston Epp and Jopaul Epp.
Filming was originally scheduled in February 2003, but Tobey Maguire injured his arm causing filming to be delayed two months.
Testing with focus groups was done to help determine the film's title, at one point the titles "Spider-Man: No More", "Spider-Man 2 Lives" and "Spider-Man: Unmasked".
Opening sequence features artwork by artist Alex Ross, which recaps the events in Spider-Man (2002).
One of the Daily Bugle newspapers features a headshot of Spider-Man that is actually from a promotional image for the comic book mini-series Marvels (1994), which was painted by Alex Ross (who painted the recap images in this film's main title sequence).
The plot of the movie, involving Peter Parker quitting crime-fighting, is largely inspired by The Amazing Spider-Man #50, "Spider-Man No More". The shot of Peter dumping his Spider-Man costume in an alley trash can is identical to a famous panel from that issue.
According to an interview with Kirsten Dunst, early storylines included the Black Cat as a major character.
Approximately $54 million was spent on digital effects alone.
At one point in the promotional marketing of the film, bases featuring the Spider-Man 2 logo were to be used during Major League Baseball games. However, this plan was scrapped after intense negative reaction from baseball fans.
In Alfred Molina's first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), he was required to let spiders crawl all over his body.
The film features two other villains from the comics. John Jameson (son of J. Jonah Jameson) is the Man-Wolf and Dr. Curt Connors (presumably the same 'Dr. Connors" mentioned in the first film that fired Peter for being late too often) is the Lizard. Coincidentally, both are "Jekyll and Hyde" type villains in that they are good people who are transformed periodically against their will into their vicious, animal-like alter-egos.
Jerry O'Connell auditioned to play John Jameson.
Ivan Raimi did some uncredited script doctoring on this film.
The name of Peter's landlord, Mr. Ditkovitch, is a reference to Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-man.
The shot of the severed arm still holding the chainsaw in the operating room scene is a tribute to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II (1987).
Although Spider-Man in the comics was supposed to fight the Chameleon first, Sam Raimi was so attached to the idea of Spider-Man fighting the Green Goblin in the first feature film and wanted to bring the idea of Doc Ock in a sequel.
The train fight between Doc Ock and Spider-Man was the idea of director Sam Raimi and the first major sequence to be filmed.
Michael Chabon worked on the screenplay at one point during pre-production.
Tobey Maguire's agent asked for $25 million or 10% of the gross, whichever was better, from Columbia Pictures and was denied.
Alfred Molina who plays Dr. Octopus, actually gave names to his four mechanical tentacles (Larry, Harry, Flo, and Moe). Flo was the top right tentacle, because it was operated by a female grip and that particular tentacle was the most motherly, which removed his sunglasses and gave him sips of his drink.
When J. Jonah Jameson is needing a name for the newly villainous Doctor Octavius, one suggestion from Hoffman is the moniker Doctor Strange, about which Jameson is sarcastically excited, adding that the name has already been taken. This dialogue is referring to Spider-man's comic book ally of the same name who is also the other major co-creation of 'Stan Lee' and Steve Ditko.
The address of Joe's Pizza is given in the comics as the address of Spider-Man's ally Doctor Strange.
The phone number on Peter's helmet for Joe's Pizzeria is to a real NY Pizza place. 212-366-1182. Evidently they love the publicity.
On 30 June 2004, the film broke a record for highest one-day opening on a Wednesday: $40,442,604
One of the headstones in the background of the graveyard scene contains the name of Production Designer Neil Spisak.
The scene where Peter Parker is running down the alley, while unbuttoning his shirt top to reveal the spider on his costume's chest, is a reference to Superman (1978).
The scene where Peter Parker/Spider-man tries to accelerate and leap off a building to test his supernatural power (just before the I'm back/my back dialogue), is a reference to The Matrix (1999).
The violinist Elyse Dinh begins playing the old theme song for Spider-Man.
When the violinist sings the Spider-Man theme song for the second time, new lyrics are added to the tune ("Where have you gone to now?").
Tobey Maguire is a vegetarian, so for the scene in which he is supposedly eating a hot dog while police cars zoom by, he is in fact eating a Tofu Hot dog, which is a favorite among vegetarians.
The moped Peter Parker rides throughout the movie is a Puch Newport. During driving scenes it has an aftermarket exhaust, while parked it's exhaust is stock.
One of the posters for Mary Jane's production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" says, "J. Frazier is especially effective!" John Frazier is the special effects director on the film.
Careful inspection of the Daily Bugle Cover that reads, "Spidey and Ock Rob Bank!" has a news blurb that reads "Can chronic back pain lead to brain shrinkage?" a possible prop master poke at Tobey Maguire's real life back problems.
All Daily Bugle newspapers are chronologically and correctly dated to follow the movie's plot each day. One of the earlier papers has a headline that reads, "MTA Insider Concerned Over Aging El Train Safety," making a reference to the eventual Spidey/Doc Ock fight aboard the El near the end of the week, at the movie's climax.
Alfred Molina was in the play "Fiddler on the Roof" as Tevye while shooting this movie. In one wall-climbing scene he is humming the song "If I Were a Rich Man" to himself and the puppeteers overheard him and moved his tentacles in time to the song.
The movie was sent to cinemas under the name "Spray Paint" to try and avoid the attention of pirates.
The "artist's rendition" of Dr. Octopus when he appears on the front page of the Daily Bugle is how he first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #3: wearing a white lab coat and dark sunglasses.
In a scene in which Peter Parker runs down an alley to become Spider-man, posters for punk band The Ataris album "So long Astoria" can be seen on the walls.
There are several visual references to the first movie in this film: * Peter running into a burning building to save a child. * Peter running across a rooftop before trying (and failing) to shoot his web. * Peter putting out the trash in aunt May's back yard and speaking to Mary Jane. * Spider-Man lying incapacitated on the sofa of his enemy. * POV of Peter Parker looking through his glasses and seeing a blurred image.
Director Cameo: Sam Raimi near the beginning of the movie, when Peter is on campus, he drops his books. When he bends down to retrieve them, he is hit in the head by two backpacks. Sam Raimi is the second "student" to hit him.
Pre-production, scripting and casting were all finished within a year of the first film's release.
The high-speed balls of webbing Spider-Man fires at his enemies in this movie are known to comic fans as Impact Webbing, introduced in the early-'90s as a creation of Ben Reilly, the clone of Spider-Man.
Sam Raimi chose Alfred Molina after Raimi's wife watched Frida (2002).
Sam Raimi originally intended the film to maintain an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 like its predecessor. However, when he realized that in order to have Dr. Octopus and Spider-Man in the same shot, the frame would need to be wider in order to accomodate Dr. Octopus' metal tentacles. So Raimi upgraded the ratio to 2.35:1 specifically for the film.
The lines of poetry that Peter quotes to MJ ('Day by day he gazed upon her / Day by day he sighed with passion') are from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Four Winds".
Cameo: Phil LaMarr is a passenger on the elevated subway train.
When Jonah Jameson offers the scruffy man $50 for the Spider-Man costume he found, he replies, "I could get more for it on eBay." In 2001, four Spider-Man costumes were stolen from the set of the first movie. They were eventually recovered after an 18 month investigation and the arrest of a former movie studio security guard and an accomplice. While Columbia Pictures offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to their return, movie memorabilia experts estimated the value of the costumes as about $50,000 each.
EASTER EGG: In the special features, arrow up and the upper right tentacle (Flo) will light up. This leads to a short bit where Director Sam Raimi finds someone to give Alfred Molina "tips" on how to act like Doc Ock. They go over to the tentacles and inside, "acting" how Doc Ock should be played, is Willem Dafoe. Alfred gets a good laugh at this.
When Peter runs down the stairs to avoid the Russian landlord, the landlord says, in Russian, "Idiot! Why are guys like that even born?"
According to DP Bill Pope, even though the film primarily uses Super 35, 16 large format cameras were brought in to shoot the exterior of the subway train scene. To cover every angle of the train, all six Panavision Super 65mm cameras were brought in and used for the first time since Far and Away (1992) together with an 8-perf Iwerks camera, four Arri 435 cameras and 8 VistaVision cameras, with an array of three joined up to create a large dimension view.
The character of Hoffman, played by Ted Raimi, is only ever seen in Jonah's office, and he is never seen entering through a door, but always appears from off-screen.
In the scene before Doc Ock approaches Harry about the Tritium, Harry is looking at pictures of Spider-Man. The clipboard that Harry slams down has two pictures on it. The one on the left is Alex Ross's recreation of the first appearance of Spider-Man as seen in "Amazing Fantasy."
Shipped to theaters in the USA under the title "Choices".
SPOILER: Mary-Jane Watson is performing in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" as the ingénue Cecily Cardew. Not only does Wilde's comedy also concern men with double identities (like Peter Parker), but Cecily Cardew is unaware of their purposeful deception until the end of the second act of the three-act play (much like Mary-Jane is unaware of Peter's duality until the end of the second movie in the trilogy).
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Post by kg redhead on Dec 5, 2005 6:23:05 GMT -5
Depending on which country you see the film, much of the soundtrack is influenced by that country's local artists - or artists presently being promoted in that country. For example, in Britain the film's primary song is Switchfoot's "Meant to Live" while in the U.S. the focus in the movie (and on the radio) is Dashboard Confessional's Vindicated.
A red cross on a hospital in the theatrical version becomes a white cross for DVD/TV versions. (The American Red Cross asked for the change, concerned the symbol's use could be misinterpreted.)
In some theatrical versions of the film, there is a scene near the end where Peter calls up Aunt May on the phone, and she just sits there, listening to the answering machine, but not bothering to pick up. This scene has been completely removed from the dvd release.
All R2 and R3 DVDs are based on the cut British DVD of the movie.
The Australian DVD is also the cut British version.
In the UK version a headbutt (in a fight between Spider-Man and Doc Ock) was replaced with a punch in order to secure a PG rating, which the distributor desperately wanted for commercial reasons. This version was used as the basis for the home video release in the UK, Germany and some RC3 countries. The US version is uncut.
When Peter comes back from delivering the pizzas, there is a refrigerator with sodas in the back of the pizza place. In the US version, the sodas are Dr. Pepper. In Latin America the sodas are Mirinda, a famous orange beverage that sponsored the movie in the region.
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Post by kg redhead on Dec 29, 2005 10:00:54 GMT -5
watched this today some fantastic moments in it the bit where Doc Ock kidnapps Aunt May and there's a cameo by Stan Lee! the bit where Spidy saves the train and the passangers then save him the bit where Doc Ock comes around and realises he has to sacrifice himself to prevent the city from being destroyed... really looking forward to 3 now
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