It is hard to overstate the record-breaking numbers posted by Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and Amy Pascal has given some thought to the creative decisions behind it. The producer is in many ways an architect of what the modern Spider-Man franchise has become.
Speaking with Deadline in an interview that covered a good deal of ground, Pascal was on hand to talk about the film and the vision of its director, Destin Daniel Cretton, as well as to give a measured word on the forthcoming James Bond movie and where the series is headed.
“With No Way Home we had the multiverse spectacle, you can’t feature three Spider-Men on screen and then top that,” said Pascal, who has been part of the Spider-Man story since 2002 when the character made his first big live-action splash. “So we went deeper with Peter Parker.” It is a philosophy she holds in common with producing partner Rachel O’Connor and Kevin Feige at Marvel; the studio doesn’t produce a new film to satisfy the superhero universe at large but to tell the next chapter of Peter Parker’s tale.
This mindset informed the isolation at the heart of the film. Cretton pitched a story of how hard it is to forge a real connection in a world awash with technology, something Pascal found very much of the moment. He also wanted a young villain whose own anonymity and emotional remove would be a reflection of Peter’s. In the end you have a narrative that pairs Peter with Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey, the Punisher or Bruce Banner, all of them at odds with internal forces they cannot fully control.
Pascal did not mince words in her commendation of Cretton. She pointed to such films as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Short Term 12 and Just Mercy as evidence of an ability to keep the action grounded by an adherence to the laws of physics. “There is an authenticity to everything he does, an emotion to it,” she observed. Should Cretton come back for a sequel? “If we have our way he will be,” she said, though there is no writers’ room currently.
As for the rest of the franchise, Pascal sees the Marvel partnership as a matter of one picture at a time. There is much made of so-called superhero fatigue but she dismisses the notion entirely; audiences will come for a well told story and characters they have an investment in. “I don’t really consider them superhero movies,” she said, pointing to Holland and the emotional through-line in the ensemble.
The films have never been conceived as part of some pre-ordained trilogy but as entities in their own right. There are no formal plans for Holland to be in another, and Pascal feels that has been good for the series.
007 Update
Pascal made the next James Bond film a topic of the conversation, a venture she is developing with David Heyman at Amazon MGM Studios. When asked when one might expect word of Daniel Craig’s successor, she gave a firm if guarded answer.
“We are being very methodical about it,” Pascal said in her exchange with Deadline. “I would bet on the end of the year for that kind of news. You have to be different and deliver something stirring and exciting. I have worked with Barbara Broccoli here at the studio; Daniel Craig is not easy to follow.”
These remarks suggest that the process is anything but hasty, more concerned with a new take than a like-for-like swap. She did not elaborate on any casting or creative matters.
On the subject of the theatrical market, Pascal is as bullish as ever, pointing to the likes of Toy Story 5 and The Odyssey from Christopher Nolan to show that people will still go see a film that has an emotional hold on them.
There is a certain strength in the way Pascal sees each Spider-Man outing as its own story and not just another box to tick in some grand design. Where other studios will tell you their multi-film plans for years down the line, this one starts with where Peter Parker is emotionally and goes from there, which has been good for the bottom line and the art of it. Brand New Day’s record opening is testimony to that sort of discipline. To have gone deeper post No Way Home as opposed to bigger was a risk; the box-office figures prove it was a sound strategy.
Her reticence on Bond is telling too. In calling the end of the year “a good bet” for an announcement and emphasizing the need for something “really different”, Pascal is paying proper respect to what Daniel Craig established and the perils of a quick fix. Given the methodical nature of the Craig years under Broccoli, one gets the sense Amazon MGM knows what they are up against with their choice of words. The next 007 cannot simply step into the tuxedo; he must claim the role as his own. Whether they succeed will define the franchise for the next decade.