James Franco isn’t a fan of the rebooted Spider-Man franchise starring James Garfield as the titular superhero.
Franco, who played the role of “Harry Osborn/New Goblin” in Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man trilogy isn’t terribly fond of director Marc Webb’s darker take on the iconic comic book hero which began with 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man .
In an interview with MTV News , Franco was asked what he thought of the re-launched series, which has a sequel planned for 2014.
“Ehhhhh,” answered Franco with hesitation. “They could have strayed a little bit more from the original … It was like, ‘Why?’”
Franco isn’t alone in his criticism, either. Comic Book Resources opined before the release of The Amazing Spider-Man in early July that the rebooted franchise seems a bit too soon, particularly criticizing the decision to re-cast the origin story of Peter Parker with new actors. Since the original Spider-Man film is only about 10 years old, the theory was that the audience was already familiar with the origin and didn’t need to be subjected to a 30-55 minute rehash of something they were already familiar with.
Still, a lot of the Spider-Man mythology wasn’t touched on in the Raimi series, so more Spider-Man movies isn’t the issue. It’s whether or not the studio starts all over again and puts a new paint job on a familiar tale, which brings us back to Franco’s criticism.
“I guess they made a lot of money,” Franco adds. “Congrats. Good for them … Sam and I moved on. We made ‘ Oz .’”
Franco is referring to 2013’s Oz the Great and Powerful , which sees him reunited with Spider-Man director Sam Raimi.
Do you think it was too soon for a Spider-Man reboot?