Trivia / The Amazing Spider-Man Series

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• Approval of God: Bryce Dallas Howard, the previous cinematic Gwen Stacy, praised Emma Stone's performance in the duology. In fact, Howard was with Stone when the latter was announced for the role^note Based on the timeline, this was likely during production for The Help in which Stone and Howard starred in.
• Creator Backlash:
  • In an interview with The Playlist, Andrew Garfield spoke unfavourably about making the films, comparing the lack of creative freedom Sony gave the filmmakers and actors to "a prison" and "canning Coke".
  • Sally Field admitted that she only took the role of Aunt May as a favor to producer Laura Ziskin, and was unhappy with what little her character was given to do in the films.
  • While interviewing for Spider-Man: No Way Home, Jamie Foxx went on record as saying he was happy he wasn't blue this time, suggesting he wasn't pleased with the character's original design.
• Dawson Casting:
  • 28-year-old Andrew Garfield and 24-year-old Emma Stone as the teenage Peter and Gwen. Garfield pulled the role off unlike most actors above their teens, while Stone was more iffy (but still believable). In fact, Garfield was actually older than Tobey Maguire was during the beginning of the Spider-Man Trilogy, even though this Peter actually spends almost all of the movie as a high-school student, not just the first act. It seems to work, though, as Garfield certainly didn't look as though he was pushing 30.
  • Same applies to Max Charles, the kid who plays Young Peter. He's nine years old but Peter in the beginning is around 4.
• Follow the Leader:
  • The Amazing Spider-Man followed in the wake of the The Dark Knight Trilogy with its nighttime superheroics, antagonistic police, and its extended darker Character Arc for Spider-Man (who goes from revenge-driven to altruistic).
  • The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is Lighter and Softer than the previous film, with a brighter color palette, more Spidey scenes in daytime as opposed to only suiting up at night, and Peter visibly being a happier, better-adjusted person who makes more jokes. Combine this with the number of sequel-bait elements, and it's clear that this movie is designed to be Sony's Spider-answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Franchise Zombie: Starting with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, this accusation started popping up for those that considered the film series to suffer from Sequelitis. The changes made to the schedule two months after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released (Sinister Six in 2016, Venom Carnage and the movie with a female lead in 2017, and The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2018, as opposed to The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2016, The Amazing Spider-Man 4 in 2018, spinoff movies in odd years in between) made it seem as though Sony wanted to keep the franchise, but didn't have clear plans in place to proceed. The lack of vision was made all the more apparent by people involved with the franchise apparently not knowing who the Sinister Six were going to be before The Amazing Spider-Man 2, even though the movie revealed several candidates in the last ten minutes of the film.
• Romance on the Set: Between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, although they broke up after the second movie.
• Stillborn Franchise: After the Marvel Studios partnership was announced. A rare example of this trope after two films instead of just one: the first film was a (mostly) self-contained origin story, while the second film was heavy on the future franchise set-up. That being said, villain-centric projects that were conceived for this series and leaked in 2014 have now been retooled for the continuity that was kick-started by Venom, and the latter's massive surprise success worldwide means they will happen.
• What Could Have Been: See here.
• Writer Revolt: The people at Sony decided that killing off Gwen Stacy was a bad idea and that they needed to come up with a way around it. They never got around to fixing it due to the deal with Marvel Studios.

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