Spider-Man 2 (2004) on Netflix
PG-1320042h 7mActionAdventureFantasy
Peter Parker is behind on rent, behind in his studies, and Mary Jane Watson is planning to marry John Jameson. A fusion experiment turns the scientist Otto Octavius into Doctor Octopus.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.5/10808,874 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Peter Parker struggles to balance his studies, his jobs and his life as Spider-Man. Rent is overdue, his aunt May faces eviction, and the Daily Bugle's J. Jonah Jameson prints attacks on Spider-Man. Harry Osborn holds Spider-Man responsible for his father Norman's death, and Peter has kept his distance from Mary Jane Watson, who is engaged to John Jameson. Harry, now running Oscorp, funds a fusion power machine built by the nuclear scientist Otto Octavius, who mentors Peter. At a public demonstration, the reaction destabilizes and the harness of mechanical tentacles Octavius wears fuses to his body. Taken to a hospital, he flees when the tentacles attack the doctors, and takes to a harbor warehouse to rebuild the machine, robbing a bank to fund it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- A back condition left over from Seabiscuit nearly cost Tobey Maguire the part: Sam Raimi heard he could be paralysed by a back injury and Jake Gyllenhaal was cast in his place, until Universal Studios head Ronald Meyer helped Maguire regain the role at a salary of $17 million.
- Novelist Michael Chabon was hired to rewrite the script in September 2002. His version had a younger Doc Ock infatuated with Mary Jane Watson, his limbs feeding him endorphins he enjoyed, until a fight with Spider-Man fused the tentacles and the fusion began to kill him.
- The celebrated New York train fight began on Chicago's Loop: over two days in November 2002 the crew took a train of 2200 series cars and set sixteen cameras for background plates, although the surroundings match no route a New York subway train travels.
- Filming stopped for eight weeks while Doc Ock's collapsed pier lair was built. Production designer Neil Spisak's set, evoking Fritz Lang and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, took fifteen weeks to build on Sony's Stage 30, ran 60 by 120 ft and 40 ft high, and was doubled by a quarter-scale miniature for the collapse.
- The swinging shots came from a rig called the Spydercam, dropping fifty stories with shot lengths of just over 2400 ft in New York and 3200 ft in Los Angeles, sometimes running at six frames per second so the footage played back faster. The first film had used it for one shot only.
- Doc Ock's tentacles were largely real: four foam rubber limbs 8 ft long weighing 100 lb in all, each worked by four people who rehearsed every scene with Alfred Molina. He called them Larry, Harry, Moe and Flo, Flo being the top-right one, handled by a female grip, that removed his glasses and lit his cigar.
- Danny Elfman fell out with Sam Raimi during the recording sessions and later called scoring the film a miserable experience. Asked to match a cue from Hellraiser, he refused to imitate Christopher Young; Young could not get close to it either, so the original cue was licensed and used when Doc Ock's tentacles are revealed.
Stills
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