Garfield, Stone in superhero reboot

– by Shawn Conner

Scene: The Alan Smithee Suite at the Chateau Marmont, Hollywood, sometime in 2009. A meeting of Sony Pictures executives and a Marvel Disney lawyer.

Sony Executive #1: Okay, whadda we got?

Sony Executive #2: We’re talking about the Spider-Man reboot.

SE1: The what? Fuck me, didn’t we just make one of those?

Sony Executive #3: It’s been a few years chief.

SE1: Fuck me. Okay, so where we at?

SE2: Well we’ve got a director, this guy Marc Webb. Just did a flick, the kids love it, some romance thing with some fancypants angle where they go back and forth in the —

SE1: Will he do what we tell him?

SE3: He’s lubed up, bent over and spread wide.

SE1: Lovely. We got a cast?

SE3: We got this kid, gonna be huge, Andrew Garfield. He’ll play Peter Parker.

SE1: Who?

SE2: Spider-Man, chief.

SE1: Right. Whatever. Anything’s better than that asshole Maguire. Who’s the twist?

SE3: Emma Stone.

SE1: Who?

SE3: House Bunny, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past—

SE1: No wonder I haven’t seen a goddamn movie since Back to the Future, that’s the shit they’re making. She have big tits?

SE2 & 3 [looking at each other nervously]: No but–

SE2: She’s good, chief.

SE3: Big with the female demographic 14 – 34. Women love her, she’s pretty but not threatening. Between her and Garfield, we got it covered.

SE1 [skeptical]: What happened to Lohan? She’s got a great set.

SE3: Rehab.

SE1: Fucking Ratner. Okay. Well if that’s it–

SE3: Well, I didn’t want to bring this up, but, uhm, it’s just that, well, Garfield, he’s like 29. And Emma Stone’s 24.

SE1 & SE2: [looking at him like, and so?]

SE3: Well, at the last meeting we decided we were going to do the first movie’s story all over again, with the two main characters in high school… and, well… I’m just wondering, is the audience gonna buy them as high school students?

SE1 & SE2: [and so?]

SE1: We got a guy, spins webs from his asshole and swings around beating up bad guys, you’re worried the audience is gonna care we got a 30-year-old in high school?

SE3: Good point.

SE1: Gives a fuck, maybe he’s been held back.

SE3: Uhm, yeah. But, uh, he’s like this genius kid who makes his own–

SE1: You’re one brain-fart away from going back to directing Californication.

SE3: Right. Sorry, chief.

SE1: All right. Was there anything else?

Marvel Disney Lawyer: [clears throat]

SE1: What the fuck is he doing here?

SE2: Marvel Disney, chief.

SE1: [glares]

SE2: We’ve got to decide on a villain.

SE1: What’s wrong with the Joker?

SE2: That’s Batman, chief.

SE1: What the fuck do I know.

SE3: See, this is where it gets complicated-

SE2: We only have four we can choose from.

SE3: Five.

SE2: [quizzical expression]

SE3: Venom

SE2. Right. Forgot.

SE3: No one remembers Venom.

SE2: So, five.

SE1: Five what?

SE2: Super-villains. We only bought the rights to the Green Goblin, the Sandman, Venom, Doctor Octopus and the Lizard. Marvel Disney has the rest.

SE3: Yeah, and we used the Green Goblin, the Sandman, Venom and Doctor Octopus already. So–

SE2: What we were thinking–

SE1: Lizard.

SE2 & 3: Great idea, boss.

MDL: [clears throat]

SE1: That okay with you?

MDL: Yeah, should be cool. I’ll just double-check with the brass.

SE1: Well, hallelujah.

SE2: One thing we’re wondering-

SE3: Yeah. In the comic book, he’s like just a guy what has green scaley skin and wears a lab coat and is, like, about human-size. And he hisses when he talks.

SE1: I hate it. A man-size lizard in a lab coat?

SE2: Yeah, see, that’s what we’re thinking.

SE1: Big. Go big.

SE2: Like, bigger than Spider-Man?

SE1: Like, CGI big. Like as big as we can make him.

SE2: [scribbling furiously on his notepad] Right. Big.

SE1: Lose the lab coat.

SE2: Lose the…

SE1: And give him a big monster voice! Yeah, make him talk like this [does a passable imitation of Linda Blair‘s devil voice in The Exorcist] I’m liking this. Like the Spider-Man versus the Lizard-Man. Can they fight like on top of the tallest building in New York or wherever the fuck?

SE2: Tallest building…

SE3: Brilliant. You’re on a roll, chief.

SE1: That’s why they pay me the big bucks.

Everybody: [laughter]

SE1: Okay. Sounds like we’re all set. Boys, this one has “summer blockbuster” written all over it in neon jizz. Anything else?

[silence]

SE1: We got a script?

[uproarious laughter]

Looking for Spider-Man comics and memorabilia? Start at Kijiji.