Andrew Garfield has had a really great career, especially for someone his age. His movies perform well critically, he gets to work with great directors, and he gets to play a variety of roles. His biggest role is, of course, Spider-Man. Although that's what he's known for, some people would rather forget those Spider-Man movies but not because of him.
The movies were Sony's way of competing with Marvel before they partnered with them for future Spider-Man movies starring Tom Holland. They were building a massive Spider-Man universe that would eventually expand into letting characters other than Spider-Man have movies. It sounds like a cool concept on paper, but they were very focused on making movies that just set-up other movies. They weren't really making good movies that feel like contained stories that you can enjoy. Andrew Garfield recently spoke on this topic with The Hollywood Reporter and said he fought really hard to honor the character.
"I had to fight really, really hard to make sure that the character was honored and that we were offering something really fun, entertaining and also moving and complex and deep for all the young boys and girls that want to see their favorite superhero," Garfield explained. "So many beautiful things came out of that. I met someone that remains incredibly important to my life on that — you can fill in the blanks on who that is."
Garfield went on to say how he didn't really feel satisfied with the products when they released.
"But the difference between how I felt when Never Let Me Go and The Social Network were coming out and how I felt with The Amazing Spider-Man franchise was that I didn't feel represented. I was feeling very represented by those other two films, and with The Amazing Spider-Man stuff I didn't feel like that was my work up there, in a weird way. It felt like a semblance of it or kind of a shade of it, but ultimately I felt it was enshrouded in that filter."
It's sad to see a great actor's dreams crushed by the mindset of corporate Hollywood, but that's the harsh reality of the film industry. However, Spider-Man lives on with Tom Holland and in what appear to be much safer hands. Without the sacrifices Andrew Garfield made, we may have never gotten to see Spider-Man on screen with the Avengers!
This isn't the first time Garfield has spoken out about the movies, a few months ago he talked about how he felt Sony had no idea what they were doing with certain plots and characters and much more.
Spider-Man will make his next appearance in Spider-Man: Homecoming which will release July 7th, 2017.
