While Man of Steel is now starting to get some mixed reactions around the web, actor James Franco can still be considered a big fan. He wrote in praise of the film in a new op-ed, but also took a swipe at the new Spider-Man franchise, saying that The Amazing Spider-Man is just a cash grab.
In his Vice piece “Man of Steel: The Super Movie,” the actor starts off by talking about his own connection with superhero films, discussing his work with director Sam Raimi on his Spider-Man trilogy. But then he goes off a bit on why these characters are revisited so many times, noting that he was surprised that Sony revisited Spider-Man so quickly with The Amazing Spider-Man.
“The answer is, of course, money. We are in the film business, and the studios are owned by large corporations who want to make money,” Franco writes. And in this art form, where so much is spent and so much profit can be made, one criterion for success is inevitably the financial. And when movies become so big that they can make $200 million in one weekend like The Avengers did, everyone from studios to filmmakers are going to want to get in on making comic-book movies. And when great directors like Sam Raimi and Christopher Nolan show that equally great characters can live within special-effects-laden films, then the comic-book genre becomes legitimized and great actors will follow.
“But the biggest reason, we cannot forget, is money.”
Eventually, Franco goes to the topic at hand - his thoughts on Man of Steel. “So, what did we watch? A great film,” he said after describing his first viewing. “But what makes me say this? Is it the nerd revolution that has brought our public taste to the point where comic-book characters and video games are now cool? Are these huge comic-book films the way for the world at large to embrace the subjects of these forms that are traditionally relegated to the nerd niche? Yes, in a way.”
What Franco really, really liked was Man of Steel’s decision to focus on hope and how the character can help make a better world.
“One of the main reasons I liked it was because in this film, Superman’s S symbol stands for “hope” on the planet Krypton. Viewers discover that Superman is the symbol of hope for his dead race and simultaneously the symbol of hope for the human race. He hides his powers for the first 30 years of his life on Earth because his adopted father (Kevin Costner) believes that humans won’t be ready for him. In this way Superman is presented as a kind of Christ figure, given to Earth to save humanity,” Franco wrote. “He just does all the heavy lifting himself. If we are supposed to have hope in anything, it’s hope that Superman keeps fighting for good. If he doesn’t, we have no way of stopping him.”
According to The Huffington Post, Franco had a lukewarm reaction to Amazing Spider-Man, telling MTV News that his only response to it was “Eh.”
“I mean, they could have strayed a little bit more from the original," Franco explained. "It's like, 'Why?' Well, I guess they made a lot of money. Congrats. Good for them. Sam and I moved on, we made Oz The Great And Powerful.”
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