Amazing Spider-Man 2 images

This past weekend at Comic-Con 2013, director Marc Webb sat down with Screen Rant to talk about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and The Amazing Spider-Man 3. In our interview, Webb discussed some of the themes of the movie, as well as the abundance of villains in the film (and how they might extend into further sequels).

This second point is one that Webb has been talking about a lot lately, as some fans have openly worried that the sequel will suffer the same flaws as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3.

In a different interview with Crave Online, Webb addressed the number of characters in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and explained how some of their cameo appearances that will set-up a bigger story for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 (and perhaps even The Amazing Spider-Man 4).

Paul Giamatti in 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2'

Reiterating some of what Webb told us, the director said that Rhino is just a minor character in The Amazing Spider-Man 2:

"I think the main obstacle, the main villain of this film is Electro. He is our primary focus and it's somebody that has extraordinary, antagonist potential. The other thing is, it was sort of fun to tease out little bits and pieces and have references, for people who are hardcore fans and Rhino, I think, is a better example of that.

"Listen, it's not the whole storyline. It's not deeply integrated into the plot. He's not distracting, I think he's really elemental and fun to play around with and incredibly justified but it also allows, I think, hardcore fans a chance to see what we do with him, with that character in a way that has enough nuance to feel real but doesn't distract from the film."

As we've discussed in previous articles, Rhino isn't the only character Webb plans to introduce for the series. Felicity Jones will possibly appear as Black Cat, Dane DeHaan could appear as some version of the Green Goblin or Venom, and Shailene Woodley might even eventually appear as Mary Jane Watson.

But Webb isn't stopping there. For The Amazing Spider-Man 4, he plans to introduce even more characters and build out the universe even further - possibly even other heroes:

"I think [for] the fourth movie, what we've discovered is there are so many ancillary characters, that have enormous, cinematic potential that there may be other ways to exploit those characters, in a way that is exciting and fun and worthwhile. It might not just be a 'Spider-Man' movie.

"You know, what was fun about the comics is that there's an entire sort of encyclopedia of characters and stories and histories and nuances and idiosyncrasies and off-shoots. I think that that is something that seems to be really successful and has a lot of potential so it's sort of, as yet, undefined, but intentionally so."

It makes sense why Webb and Sony would want to explore as much of the Spider-Man world as possible by bringing in new characters. Of all Marvel's flagship characters, Spider-Man has one of the richest histories and there's plenty of great stories to mine for material.

Spider-Man versus All His Villains

That being said, there are always risks to introducing characters and not paying them off. Will Rhino work as a minor villain in The Amazing Spider-Man 2? Probably. Will his appearance successfully tee up a larger story (possibly involving the Sinister Six)? Maybe not.

As much as The Avengers demonstrated that audiences are willing to watch a movie with lots of characters, there was a lot of deliberate build-up to that film. Will non-fanboy audiences be able to make clear connections between all of the Spider-Man villains from one film to the next, especially if they're as cryptic as The Gentleman (which was another possibility Webb talked about with Crave)?

In any case, there's plenty of time to debate Webb's big plans until Amazing Spider-Man 2's release date. Let us know what you think in the comments.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hits theaters May 2nd, 2014.

Source: Crave Online