With Spider-Man 3 a week away, the media blitz is in full swing. To make it easier on you (and ourselves) we’ll be collecting relevant links and stories related to the film into single posts each day between now and, well, whenever the blitz ends.

And for grins, I’ll throw out a random question every day. Today’s question: when will you see the movie — opening day, opening weekend, waiting for NextFlix or some other time?

So jumping into coverage, MTV.com has an article about the “third comic book movie curse,” and whether Spider-Man 3 will fall into the trappings we’ve all witnessed over the years:

The Spidey stars also have an admission to make: They must once again reinvent our concept of superhero movies, as they did in 2002 following the decades of legal wrangling that had kept the web-slinger from the silver screen. After witnessing fans despise “Batman Forever,” “Superman III,” “Blade: Trinity” and “X-Men: The Last Stand,” we’ve been conditioned to face what seems as inevitable as death and taxes: Third superhero movies suck.

“The problem with those movies is they changed a lot of the key people,” observed an insistent Franco, who believes that Spidey’s battles with Venom, the new Goblin and the Sandman will reverse the trend. “They then became different movies. With ‘Spider-Man,’ Sam [Raimi] has directed all three, they have had the same cast on all three, and what’s more is that all the movies really go together. The story and the arcs of the characters aren’t completed until this third movie.”

“The fact that I’m able to direct the third film makes sure that I can really capitalize on teams of people that have been assembled in the first two pictures,” agreed Raimi, the first superhero-film maker to still be standing for a third film while peers Richard Donner (“Superman”), Tim Burton (“Batman”) and Bryan Singer (“X-Men”) were gone after two. “On a first film, you spend a little bit of time getting to know [the actors] … by the second film, we have a trust and a friendship … [now] it was much easier finding the truth in moments; that increased in the third picture.”

The OC Register has a similar article, as they look at what they call “sequel fatigue”:

Early reviews are good, advance ticket sales are strong and two weeks before its debut, “Spider-Man 3″ is grabbing headlines around the world, but director Sam Raimi says he can’t think of more Spidey movies.

“I’m just exhausted, and I need to get away from it for a while,” Raimi told Reuters in a recent interview.

The big question for this third film about the superhero with spider-like powers is whether audiences will be tired, too, when “Spidey” makes its global debut May 4.

Like MTV, they bring up the Batman franchise from the late 80s/early 90s. I don’t remember hating the third movie, to be honest, but I don’t remember being blown away, either. Actually I wasn’t blown away by any of the Batman movies of that time period, so maybe I’m not the right guy to comment …

Moving on, fans who are taking such things into consideration when making their decision about whether to see it or not can check out Michael San Giacomo’s review over on the main site. As he mentions at the beginning, there could be spoilers.

Movies Online chatted with direct Sam Raimi about the film … it’s a lengthy interview that covers a lot of ground, including the new villains:

Q: Can you talk about bringing in the new villains?

Raimi: They came about in different ways. Here’s what we did. We first decided to approach the problem like this. Where is Peter Parker at the end of the second picture as a human being? He’s a kid in all these stories. They’re kind of coming of age stories and he learns different aspects of growing up, different life lessons in each of these films and often times in the comic books. So my brother and I spoke for quite some time and we felt that the most important thing Peter right now has to learn is that this whole concept of him as the avenger or him as the hero, he wears this red and blue outfit, with each criminal he brings to justice, he’s trying to pay down this debt of guilt he feels about the death of Uncle Ben.

He considers himself a hero and a sinless person versus these villains that he nabs. We felt it would be a great thing for him to learn a little less black and white view of life and that’s he not above these people. He’s not just the hero and they’re not just the villains. They were all human beings and that he himself might have some sin within him and that other human beings, the ones he calls the criminals, have some humanity within them and that the best we can do in this world is to not strive for vengeance, but for forgiveness. So that was what we felt would be the next broadening of his awareness as a human being

And over at Movie Hole, you can see what comic fan Topher Grace had to say about the film:

Was this a character that was just irresistible for you to play on so many levels?
GRACE: Yeah, on so many levels. One I’m a huge fan of the first 2 films. I thought the 2nd one was better than the 1st which is so rare. It’s clear that they have this well-oiled machine and they know exactly what they’re doing. The actors and Sam. On another level I was a really big fan when I was a kid of the comic book. Literally when the character of Venom was being born, I was getting really into comic books reading Todd McFarland who was this new illustrator and was kind of blowing my mind and he was doing Amazing Spiderman and he did like his own Spiderman comic book, so I felt like I had the inside track and no one else should play it. In fact when Sam told me, he said I want you to play Venom, I kind of had to bite my tongue and say “like tell me about the character” and I hadn’t negotiated yet for money yet so.

And to wrap it up, The Buffalo News talks about this summer’s comic movies, from Spider-Man to FF to Transformers:

“The kids keep saying May 4, May 4, May 4. We can’t stop talking about it,” Jeff Biniewski says about next Friday’s release of “Spider-Man 3.”

Watching these big-screen adaptations of their favorite comic book heroes is a family affair for the Biniewski clan — Jeff and Marcella, along with their children Matthew, 5; Jack, 10; Emily, 14; and Rebecca, 16. Jeff still has the comic books he collected as a kid and today shares that passion with his children as they watch Spider-Man and other superheroes brought to life in cartoons, videos and big-screen movie adaptations.

Heh. The kids keep saying May 4. It isn’t the kids going nuts at my house …

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Marvel, Movies, News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.