J.K. Simmons' screen test from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man has resurfaced on Twitter, proving once again that Simmons was perfectly cast. In the 2002 film, Simmons played J. Jonah Jameson, the editor-in-chief at The Daily Bugle and Peter Parker's boss. Jameson regularly decried Spider-Man as being a menacing vigilante and tried to smear the superhero's name at every opportunity, inciting fury by the crusader who had to provide pictures of himself for publication. Simmons was celebrated for his performance and will reprise it in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
As an actor, Simmons has made a name for portraying power and domination on screen. He received an Oscar in 2015 for Whiplash where he played an emotionally and physically abusive jazz instructor. He voiced the villainous Omni-Man in Invincible, murdered Andy Samberg's character repeatedly in Palm Springs, and brought to life a brooding Commissioner Gordon in Zach Snyder's Justice League. But that titanic film career was launched with his performance as Jameson, as Simmons had mostly been recognized for his TV work in Oz and Law & Order previously.
Daily Raimi Spider-Man! posted Simmons' screen test on Twitter on Saturday, reigniting respect for Simmons' work. In the short clip, Simmons reads for Jameson without yet having the infamous wig, berating his staff for publishing a piece on Spider-Man. Once he's informed the paper sold out of copies, Jameson switches gears and announces payment for pictures of the vigilante. See the video below:
Critic David Edelstein of Slate said in his 2002 review that Simmons' Jameson was "a dazzling fount of bumptiousness. (Quick: Someone revive The Front Page! We have the greatest Walter Burns of our time!)" Critic KJB at IGN called Simmons "perfectly cast" and expected Jameson to add to the inevitable series, a sentiment Simmons himself shares about Jameson returning in No Way Home. All around, the ferocity and delight that Simmons had when he put on the wig became one of the iconic pillars upon which the legacy of the Raimi trilogy rested.
Jameson was a spectrum of things for Spider-Man: a boss, a villain, and even a step-cousin. While the casting throughout the first Raimi film was nailed between Willem Dafoe as The Green Goblin, Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, James Franco as Harry Osborn, and especially Tobey Maguire as the first live-action Spider-Man, Simmons' portrayal still shines to this day as an outlier. Be it as well a testament to Raimi's direction, David Koepp's brilliant dialogue, or Stan Lee's creation of the character, J.K. Simmons solidified himself as the perfect choice to manifest all of those talents into one charismatic and deplorable publisher.
Source: Daily Raimi Spider-Man!