Spiderman 2

Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi and written by Alvin Sargent from a story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Michael Chabon. The sequel to the 2002 film Spider-Man, it is the second film in Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy based on the fictional Marvel Comics character of the same name. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco reprise their roles as Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn, respectively.

Set two years after the events of Spider-Man, the film focuses on Peter Parker struggling to manage both his personal life and his duties as Spider-Man. Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), who takes a turn for the diabolical following a failed experiment and the death of his wife. Using his mechanical tentacles, Octavius is dubbed "Doctor Octopus" and threatens to endanger the lives of the people of New York City. Spider-Man must stop him from annihilating the city.

Spider-Man 2 was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters on June 30, 2004 and received extremely positive reviews. It grossed over $783 million worldwide, and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. It also received five awards at the Saturn Awards ceremony including Best Fantasy Film and Best Director for Raimi, and frequently ranks among the best superhero films of all time. The film's success led to Spider-Man 3, released in 2007.

Plot
Peter Parker struggles to balance his crime-fighting duties as Spider-Man with the demands of his normal life. Parker is estranged from both love interest Mary Jane Watson and best friend Harry Osborn, who still bears a hateful grudge against Spider-Man. Harry insists that Spider-Man murdered his father, Norman Osborn. As a result, Peter starts to think about giving up being Spider-Man.

Harry, now head of Oscorp's research division, sponsors the research of brilliant nuclear scientist Otto Octavius. Octavius, who dreams of perfecting fusion power, wears a harness of powerful robotic arms with artificial intelligence for an experiment in sustained fusion. Though the experiment succeeds at first, it quickly becomes unstable with few disaters; Octavius' wife is killed, the neural inhibitor chip which prevents the arms from influencing his mind is fried, and the arms are fused to his spine. Unconscious, he is taken to a hospital, but before the operation can commence, the tentacles savagely kill the entire medical crew. The tentacles corrupt Octavius' mind, and lead him to the resolution that he must complete his experiment regardless of the moral cost. To finance his work, Octavius - now called Doctor Octopus or "Doc Ock" - robs a bank, where he takes Aunt May hostage. When Doc Ock was about to stab Spider-Man with his spear, Aunt May snatch his temple with her umbrella and sparing Spider-Man, but Doc Ock drops her from a building. Spider-Man manages to save his aunt, but Ock returns to his lair with loot stolen from the bank.

During a party, Peter learns that Mary Jane is engaged to Jameson's son, renowned astronaut John Jameson, and gets into a fight with Harry (who is drunk) over his "loyalty" to Spider-Man. As Ock rebuilds his experimental reactor, Peter's powers prove unreliable. After a doctor tells him that his physical problems are due to mental stress, he finally gives up being Spider-Man and throws away his costume in the garbage. During this time, Peter begins to excel in college, while at the same time, also begins to mend his relationship with Mary Jane.

A garbage man brings Spider-Man's discarded costume to sell at the Daily Bugle. J. Jonah Jameson takes credit for Spider-Man's disappearance, but later admits that he was indeed a hero, and the only person capable of stopping Ock. Peter, out of guilt, tells Aunt May that it was his fault for Uncle Ben's death. After Peter tells his aunt everything from the thief to Uncle Ben's death, Aunt May retreats to her room in shock. Later, Aunt May forgives Peter and advises him that sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice one's dreams for the greater good. Realizing that the city's need for Spider-Man is greater than his personal ambitions, Peter decides to become Spider-Man once again. Even so, his powers continue to be lost.

Ock, having restored his project, needs tritium for his reactor, and goes to Harry to get it. Harry agrees to give Octavius all the tritium he possesses in exchange for bringing Spider-Man to him, and tells him that Peter, who is supposedly good friends with Spider-Man, is the key to finding him; however, he tells Ock not to harm the photographer. Ock finds Peter and tells him to find Spider-Man, and abducts Mary Jane in the process. Following this, Peter finds that his powers have been restored, and he dons his costume again after stealing it back from the Bugle. Angered by his "stolen" costume, Jameson once again continues his role to denounce Spider-Man as a menace.

Spider-Man then proceeds to battle Ock across town. Eventually, they battle on a train which Ock disables. Spider-Man attempts to stop the runaway train - successfully saving everyone on board. When people on the train see him unmasked, they are shocked to see that he is only a young man. Two boys hand Peter his mask and promise not to reveal his true identity. Ock returns, knocks Spider-Man out, and delivers him to Harry.

After giving Ock the tritium, Harry unmasks Spider-Man and is horrified to see his best friend. Peter regains consciousness and convinces Harry to reveal Ock's location, so he can save Mary Jane and the city. Spider-Man makes his way to Ock's waterfront laboratory, with the doctor putting the finishing touches on his makeshift reactor. Although Spider-Man attempts to rescue Mary Jane discrectly, Ock catches on and they fight once more. Spider-Man ultimately subdues Ock and reveals his identity to him, pleading for a way to stop the reactor. Free from the tentacles' AI, Octavius uses his mechanical arms to collapse the building, successfully drowning the reactor at the cost of his own life. Mary Jane sees Peter unmasked and understands that as long as he is Spider-Man, she and Peter cannot be together. Spider-Man returns Mary Jane to John and leaves.

Harry has visions of his father in a hanging mirror and shatters it, revealing a secret room containing the Green Goblin's equipment. Meanwhile, Mary Jane is getting ready for her wedding, but quickly leaves and goes to Peter's apartment. She tells Peter that she wants to be with him no matter what. After a passionate kiss, there is a sudden call for help and Mary Jane encourages Spider-Man to respond, quietly apprehensive of the dangers they are about to face as a couple.

Cast

 * Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker / Spider-Man: The main protagonist. A superhero, a Columbia College physics student and photographer for the Daily Bugle. Juggling these separate lives means he briefly gives up his responsibilities as a superhero in a moment of adversity. When Maguire signed on to portray Spider-Man in 2000, he was given a three-film contract. While filming Seabiscuit in late 2002, Maguire suffered injuries to his back and Sony was faced with the possibility of recasting their lead. Negotiations arose to replace Maguire with Jake Gyllenhaal, who at the time was dating Kirsten Dunst, who portrayed Mary Jane Watson. However, Maguire recovered and was able to reprise his role, with a salary of $17 million.
 * Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson: A friend Peter has loved since he was a child, yet he gave up the chance of being with her due to his obligations as a superhero. Since then, she has become a successful Broadway actress and model, and becomes engaged to John Jameson. She is angry due to Peter's failure to watch her performance in The Importance of Being Earnest, when everybody else close to her, even her abusive father, has seen it.
 * James Franco as Harry Osborn: Harry Osborn has taken his father's position as head of Oscorp. He supplies Octavius with tritium for the fusion experiment, but when it fails, Harry falls into alcoholism and a desire to kill Spider-Man, whom he believes killed his father. Harry also becomes angry at Peter, believing he will not tell him who Spider-Man is, being the supplier of his photographs to the Daily Bugle.
 * Alfred Molina as Dr. Otto Octavius / Doc Ock: The main antagonist. A scientist and Peter's role model who goes insane after his failure to create a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Octavius is bonded with his handling equipment, four artificially intelligent mechanical tentacles. These convince him to carry on his dangerous experiments no matter the cost, in memory of his wife who was killed in the fusion accident. Molina was cast as Octavius in February 2003 and immediately began physical training for the role. Raimi had been impressed by his performance in Frida and also felt he had the physicality. Molina only briefly discussed the role and was not aware that he was a strong contender for the role, and was excited, being a big fan of Marvel Comics. Although he wasn't familiar with Doc Ock, Molina found one element of the comics that he wanted to maintain, and that was the character's cruel, sardonic sense of humor.
 * Rosemary Harris as May Parker: May Parker is the loving aunt to Peter, a widow of Ben. She blames herself for his murder, but is still unaware of the circumstances surrounding it. Her house is threatened with foreclosure.
 * J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson: J. Jonah Jameson is the miserly chief of the Daily Bugle who carries a personal vendetta against Spider-Man, whom he considers a criminal. When Spider-Man temporarily gives up, Jameson also begins to reconsider his opinion of the superhero. When Spider-Man returns, he takes his suit back from Jameson, who instantly reverts to his vendetta.
 * Donna Murphy as Rosalie Octavius: Rosalie Octavius is the dedicated wife and assistant of Otto Octavius. She is killed when Octavius' experiment goes awry.
 * Daniel Gillies as John Jameson: The son of J. Jonah Jameson, fiancé of Mary Jane and a national hero.
 * Dylan Baker as Dr. Curt Connors: Dr. Curt Connors is one of Peter's physics professors at college, who reminds him to get his work done. He is a colleague of Octavius.
 * Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin: Norman returns as a hallucination of his son Harry. Dafoe came up with the idea during promotion for Spider-Man, which he compared to King Hamlet haunting his son to avenge him.

Cameos
Bruce Campbell cameos as an obnoxious usher who denies Peter access to Mary Jane's play when he is late, thus causing a rift in their relationship. Spider-Man's co-creator Stan Lee cameos as a man on the street who saves a woman from falling debris during a battle between Spider-Man and Doc Ock. Evil Dead II co-writer Scott Spiegel appears as a man who attempts to eat some pizza Spider-Man is delivering, only to have it webbed from his hands. Joel McHale appears as the teller in the bank who refuses Aunt May's loan. Hal Sparks appears as the elevator passenger who has a conversation with Spider-Man. Comedian Donnell Rawlings appears as the New Yorker who exclaims that Spider-Man stole "some guy's" pizza. Bones star Emily Deschanel appears as the receptionist who tells Parker she isn't paying for the late pizza. The Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi appears as Mr. Aziz, the pizza store owner who later dismisses Parker. Actor Joey Diaz appears as a train passenger who tells Doctor Octopus that he has to get past him to get to Spider-Man. Actress Vanessa Ferlito appears as one of Mary Jane's co-stars. Model/Actress Joy Bryant makes a cameo appearance as a spectator that witnesses Spider-Man in action. Director John Landis also appears briefly as one of the doctors who operates on Doctor Octopus. Actor Phil LaMarr also appears as a train passenger who is most easily seen to the right of Spider-Man when he's holding two webs to slow the train down.

Development
Immediately after finishing Spider-Man, director Sam Raimi segued into directing a sequel. In April 2002, Sony hired Alfred Gough and Miles Millar to write a script with Doctor Octopus, the Lizard and Black Cat as villains. On May 8, 2002, following Spider-Man's record breaking $115 million opening weekend, Sony Pictures announced a sequel for 2004. Entitled The Amazing Spider-Man, after the character's main comic book title, the film was given a budget of $200 million and aimed for a release date of May 7, 2004. The following month, David Koepp was added to co-write with Gough and Millar.

In September 2002, Michael Chabon was hired to rewrite. His draft had a younger Doc Ock, who becomes infatuated with Mary Jane. His mechanical limbs use endorphins to counteract the pain of being attached to his body, which he enjoys. When he injures two muggers on a date, this horrifies Mary Jane and in the resulting battle with Spider-Man his tentacles are fused together, and the fusion begins to kill him. In the script, Octavius is the creator of the genetically-altered spider from the first film, and gives Peter an antidote to remove his powers: this means when Octavius is dying with his tentacles, he wants to extract Spider-Man's spine to save himself. This leads to the alliance with Harry in the final film. Beforehand, Harry and the Daily Bugle put a $10 million price on Spider-Man's head, causing the city's citizens to turn against him. Producer Avi Arad rejected the love triangle angle on Ock, and found Harry putting a price on Spider-Man's head unsubtle.

Raimi sifted through the previous drafts by Gough, Millar, Koepp and Chabon, picking what he liked with screenwriter Alvin Sargent. He felt that thematically the film had to explore Peter's conflict with his personal wants against his responsibility, exploring the positive and negatives of his chosen path, and how he ultimately decides that he can be happy as a heroic figure. Raimi stated the story was partly influenced by Superman II, which also explored the titular hero giving up his responsibilities. The story is mainly taken from The Amazing Spider-Man No. 50, "Spider-Man No More!" It was decided that Doc Ock would be kept as the villain, as he was both a visually interesting villain who was a physical match for Spider-Man, and a sympathetic figure with humanity. Raimi changed much of the character's backstory however, adding the idea of Otto Octavius being a hero of Peter, and how their conflict was about trying to rescue him from his demons rather than kill him.

Filming
Spider-Man 2 was shot on over 100 sets and locations, beginning with a pre-shoot on the Loop in Chicago during two days in November 2002. The crew bought a carriage, placing 16 cameras for background shots of Spider-Man and Doc Oc's train fight. Principal photography began on April 12, 2003 in New York City. The crew moved on May 13 to Los Angeles, shooting on 10 major sets created by production designer Neil Spisak. After the scare surrounding his back pains, Tobey Maguire relished performing many of his stunts, even creating a joke of it with Raimi, creating the line "My back, my back" as Spider-Man tries to regain his powers. Even Rosemary Harris took a turn, putting her stunt double out of work. In contrast, Alfred Molina joked that the stunt team would "trick" him into performing a stunt time and again.

Filming was put on hiatus for eight weeks, in order to build Doc Ock's pier lair. It had been Spisak's idea to use a collapsed pier as Ock's lair, reflecting an exploded version of the previous lab and representing how Octavius' life had collapsed and grown more monstrous, evoking the cinema of Fritz Lang and the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Filming then resumed on that set, having taken 15 weeks to build, occupying Sony's Stage 30. It was 60 ft by 120 ft long, and 40 ft high, and a quarter-scale miniature was also built for the finale as it collapses. Filming was still going after Christmas 2003.

A camera system called the Spydercam was used to allow filmmakers to express more of Spider-Man's world view, at times dropping 50 stories and with shot lengths of just over 2400 ft in New York or 3200 ft in Los Angeles. For some shots the camera would shoot at six frames per second for a faster playback increasing the sense of speed. Shots using the Spydercam were pre-planned in digital versions of cities, and movement of the camera was controlled with motion control, making it highly cost-effective. The camera system was only used in the previous film for the final shot.

Effects
Although roughly the same, costume designer James Acheson made numerous subtle changes to Spider-Man's costume. The colors were made richer and bolder, the spider emblem was given more elegant lines and enlarged, the eye-lenses were somewhat smaller, and the muscle suit underneath was made into pieces, to give a better sense of movement. The helmet Maguire wore under his mask was also improved, with better movement for the false jaw and magnetic eye pieces, which were easier to remove.

To create Doctor Octopus' mechanical tentacles, Edge FX was hired to create a corset, a metal and rubber girdle, a rubber spine and four foam rubber tentacles which were 8 ft long, which altogether weighed 100 lb. The claws of each tentacle, which were dubbed "death flowers", were controlled by a single puppeteer in a chair, to control every available form on the claw. Each tentacle was controlled by four people, who rehearsed every scene with Molina to give a natural sense of movement as if the tentacles were moving due to Octavius' muscle movement. On-set, Molina christened his co-stars "Larry", "Harry", "Moe" and "Flo", with "Flo" being the top-right tentacle.

Edge FX was only hired to do scenes where Octavius carries his tentacles. CGI was used for when the tentacles carry Octavius: a 20 ft high rig held Molina to glide through his surroundings, with CG tentacles added later. The CG versions were scanned straight from the practical ones. However, using the practical versions was always preferred to save money, and each scene was always filmed first with Edge FX's creations to see if CGI was truly necessary. Completing the illusion, the sound designers chose not to use servo sound effects, feeling it would rob the tentacles of the sense that they were part of Octavius' body, and instead used motorcycle chains and piano wires.

Blender 3D played a role in the development of Spider-Man 2: "As an animatic artist working in the storyboard department of Spider-Man 2, I used Blender's 3D modeling and character animation tools to enhance the storyboards, re-creating sets and props, and putting into motion action and camera moves in 3D space to help make Sam Raimi's vision as clear to other departments as possible" – Anthony Zierhut, Animatic Artist, Los Angeles.

Box office
Spider-Man 2 opened in the United States on June 30, 2004 and grossed $40.4 million in its first day; this broke the first film's opening day record of $39.4 million until it was surpassed a year later by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ($50.0 million). The film also broke The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's record ($34.5 million) for the highest-grossing Wednesday of all time. It held the Wednesday record for three years until it was topped by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($44.2 million). It's Friday-to-Sunday gross reached a total of $88,156,227, which was the highest Independence Day weekend, breaking Men in Black II's record ($52.1 million), until it was broken seven years later by Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($97.9 million). In its first six days the film had grossed over $180 million. The film also eventually went on to gross $373.5 million, becoming the second-highest grossing film of 2004, behind Shrek 2. Worldwide, the film grossed $783.7 million, ranking 3rd highest-grossing film of 2004 behind Shrek 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Spider-Man 2's gross is currently among the all-time top twenty grossing films in the United States and Canada (#16).

Critical reception
Spider-Man 2 was critically acclaimed. Based on 243 reviews collected by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Spider-Man 2 has a 93% overall approval rating from critics, with an average score of 8.3 out of 10. By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 83, based on 41 reviews. The film was placed at No. 411 on Empire's top 500 movies of all time list.

Chicago Tribune's Mark Caro stated that Alfred Molina was a "pleasingly complex" villain, and the film as a whole "improves upon its predecessor in almost every way." Kenneth Turan, of the Los Angeles Times, gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and concurred with Caro when he stated, "Doc Ock grabs this film with his quartet of sinisterly serpentine mechanical arms and refuses to let go." Roger Ebert, giving it a perfect four out of four stars, called it "The best superhero movie since the modern genre was launched with Superman (1978)", and praised the film for "effortlessly [combining] special effects and a human story, keeping its parallel plots alive and moving." He later called it the fourth best film of 2004." IGN's Richard George felt "Sam Raimi and his writing team delivered an iconic, compelling version of Spider-Man's classic foe... We almost wish there was a way to retroactively add some of these elements to the original character."

Conversely, J. Hoberman, of The Village Voice, thought the first half of the film was "talky bordering on tiresome", with the film often stopping to showcase Raimi's idea of humor. Charles Taylor believed, "The script's miscalculation of Peter's decision feeds into the pedestrian quality of Raimi's direction and into Maguire's weightlessness... [Maguire] simply does not suggest a heroic presence", and suggested that "Dunst appears to be chafing against strictures she cannot articulate."

Awards and nominations
Spider-Man 2 won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for Best Sound Mixing (Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Joseph Geisinger) and Best Sound Editing, but lost to Ray and The Incredibles, respectively. The film won Saturn Awards for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Fantasy Film, Best Special Effects, and Best Writer, while being nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Music. It was nominated for two BAFTA awards for Special Visual Effects and Sound, but lost to The Day After Tomorrow and Ray, respectively. AFI listed the movie as one of the 10 best films of 2004, and nominated it for positions on the lists of the top 10 fantasy films, the 100 most inspiring American movies, and the 100 greatest American movies. Spider-Man 2 topped Rotten Tomatoes's list of the best-reviewed comic book movies of all time, beating out X2: X-Men United, Batman Begins and Superman. It would remain the highest rated superhero film until the release of The Dark Knight (94%) and currently ties with The Avengers for second best reviewed superhero film both at 93%. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly named it the No. 21 greatest action movie of all time.

Home media
The film was initially released on DVD as a 2-disc special edition on November 30, 2004. It was available in both anamorphic widescreen and letterboxed widescreen, as well as a Superbit edition and in a box-set with the first film. There was also a collector's edition including a reprint of The Amazing Spider-Man #50.

An extended cut of the film, with eight minutes of new footage, was released as Spider-Man 2.1 on DVD and Blu-ray on April 17, 2007 and on October 30, 2007. In addition to the new cut, the DVD also included new special features not on the original release, as well as a sneak preview of Spider-Man 3.

The film was released on the Blu-ray high definition format in October 2007 as a part of the Spider-Man: The High Definition Trilogy box set. It was also released separately on Blu-ray in November 2010 as well as the previous film as part of Sony's Blu-ray Essentials Collection. The Spider-Man trilogy was re-released on Blu-ray with a different audio transfer on June 12, 2012.