Ask Men: Avi Arad
Avi Arad: The Man behind Marvel
Why is he famous?
Avi Arad could be the most influential producer of the last decade. During his tenure at Marvel Entertainment, Avi orchestrated the company’s first forays into animation, oversaw its first successful motion picture, Blade (1998), and established some of the most profitable movie franchises in history, such as Spider-Man, X-Men and The Fantastic Four. Freed of his responsibilities as CEO of Marvel Entertainment as of May 2006, Avi has now founded his own production company -- Avi Arad Productions -- in order to do what he does best: Follow his gut instincts and watch as Hollywood tries to mimic everything he does.
Quick Bio
Avi Arad was born in Cyprus in 1948. Initially a toy designer and exec at Marvel subsidiary Toy Biz, Arad convinced Marvel’s bankers to grant him and his partner leadership of the nearly-bankrupt company in 1998. Guided in large part by his dedication to Marvel’s deep history, Avi began producing film after film using the company’s most well-known commodities, such as Spider-Man, Blade and the X-Men. With not a single failure on his CV, Avi decided to step down as the CEO of Marvel Entertainment in May of 2006 to focus his energy on his own production company, Avi Arad Productions.
Currently in the process of finalizing his production responsibilities on the highly-anticipated Spider-Man 3 (2007), Avi recently joined director Sam Raimi in unveiling seven minutes of new footage for journalists on the Sony lot. IGN reporters were there to take in the footage as well to probe the movie mogul on this blockbuster in waiting and the potential for a Spider-Man 4.
Interview
Q-1: What new challenges are there for you on this one?
I would say opportunities. I think when you have the same team, same cast, same directors, same producers, actually the same writer, it gives you an opportunity to dig deeper, everybody to dig deeper. The story, the content, the CGI. We have this thing at the end of every movie where we see them and we think, "What can we do better?" From what you can see, you are getting that. The opportunities are just to make [it] more complex. Beating up Peter Parker harder. Seeing if he can take it. If he is indeed still a hero. And this movie's really testing every bone, every emotion, every intellectual thing in his head. So I really think we have something that surpassed [Spider-Man 1 and 2]. Some of us think this is the biggest of them all.
Q-2:The trailer reveals that Sandman is the real killer of Uncle Ben. How does that affect or change Peter's motivation for being Spider-Man, since it was his guilt over not stopping his uncle's killer that made him become Spider-Man? He's kind of purged of that then?
I think if you look at movie 1 and 2, the thing that defines Peter's life is the death of Uncle Ben and his own reaction to powers as a kid. He didn't think about stopping the robber. He was thinking about some girl and getting a car, which is normal and what makes Peter Parker so accessible and so lovable. Stan [Lee] wrote a kid who's like all kids. We start his life with a mistake that defined the rest of his life. If you remember movie 1, he tried to stop the man who fell to his death, which was another tough moment in his life. Realizing that once you take the law into your own hands, there's always consequences to things you do. Sandman is a fascinating villain for us and Sam [Raimi] made him far more fascinating. Sandman [in the comics] was pretty limited. It was an interesting effect [but] he was a goon. We pride ourselves on connecting our villains to our heroes. We find a way to do it. In this story -- again without going too far into it because everything I say will end up somewhere -- we gave Sandman a real good story. Made him an interesting villain. Like all our villains are victims of circumstance in some ways.
This movie has a theme in a sense, which is about Peter dealing with the dark side. And the dark side comes out of issues. And Sandman is one of the issues. He was one who really did it. The other guy was an accomplice. "If I didn't chase him maybe things would have been different." It's a tough guilt trip. This is when one examines one's life to a great extent. That's why, on the other hand, when you look at something like Sandman you say, "What an opportunity for [the special effects team] to create a whole new algorithm…". Sand is a brand new effect at SPI [Sony Pictures Imageworks] -- we're very fortunate that Sony and SPI is one company. And we can really ask of them to go the extra distance and designing Sandman is a very complicated [process]. Literally, we developed an algorithm of a grain of sand. Then we have to learn how to manipulate it. So we knew that we had something that the world had never seen before. But if you now insert a character and a great story into it then it's a win-win situation.
Quick Fact: Avi Arad’s first Executive Producer credit came on the 1992 cartoon King Arthur and the Knights of Justice.
Q-3: Do you see this as a fitting conclusion to the franchise?
No, never conclusions. This story has been going on a long time and it will continue going. There's some issues that will come not to an end but to a conclusion, but Peter Parker's story will continue forward. He's still young. The love story will always be the ruling thing in his life. It's always about the girl so, no, it's just No. 3.
Q-4: Can you put into context the footage we've just seen? Are you allowed to say?
That's exactly the kind of thing I will not get into because a lot of ambitious people will try and reconstruct the story. I think this movie is the most complex on one hand and probably the most amazing love story yet. A lot of adversaries. All [of them] have agendas that connect them to Peter in a big way and Mary Jane. So what you see gives you the issues of the movie. Where they are and what part of the movie we are [watching] -- out of context it would be [unfair to say].
Q-5: How long do you anticipate the movie being?
Over two hours.
Q-6: Do you see a leap in CGI technology between the three films?
Huge. I think it's more than technology… but this movie, unlike movies that are CGI-driven, it has physical effects, special effects, CGI. There are so many processes in this particular battle you just saw. It's not one thing. It's very fortunate for us that Sony and SPI are one company and there's all this confidence in this franchise as there should be. So everyone here is pushing themselves. There's no great artist in effects -- physical effects, miniatures, you name it -- who doesn't want to work on this movie. These people pride themselves on pushing the envelope and doing it better than they did before.
Q-7: Variety reported a few weeks ago that Sony was in talks with David Koepp about writing Spider-Man 4. Can you say how far along those talks are? Is he definitely going to be writing it?
I think it would be great if he does, but it would be too early to make any announcements.
Q-8: Will we see more of Spider-Man as a jokester in this movie?
There will be a lot of these quips throughout the movie. One of the scenes blew me away at how funny Tobey can be, and this movie, unlike the others until now except for one scene in the previous movie, has physical comedy. I think Tobey is ready for the Improv. He's really a funny guy.
The humor has to come out of the emotional situation, out of being cornered into a place and that's where you're going to get it. It's really easy to do quips and to write them if you don't have them in the right place, but if you have the whole scene, a complex scene, a line like that is a lot, OK? You'll see other scenes -- I cannot give it away -- but all throughout the movie. You know, Sam's a real funny guy. He doesn't look it, but he is a funny guy and you'll see scenes where, because it's such a high drama and such a great love story, you need every so often to just breathe deep. And you'll see right from the start of the movie that the humor is sophisticated. It's only Peter Parker. Only an uber-geek like him could say certain things and you'll see how people around him will just shake their head. And we have more of this in this movie, which is great.
Quick Fact: One of the ways Avi stands out from other Hollywood producers is by wearing a Spider-Man pinky ring.
Q-9:We saw Peter fighting with Harry. But do we call him Green Goblin? Hobgoblin? What exactly do we call him?
Call him Harry.
Q-10: So he doesn't really have a name or take on a name?
Just call him Harry. He will be named later, but I will leave it alone for now.
Q-11: How come you didn't use the black Spidey suit design from the comics, but instead used the same design with the webbing as the red-and-blue suit? Why not use the version from the comics?
Well, we tried really hard to elevate the stories, elevate the costumes. We did things that were different in the books. I remember everybody was up in arms over organic webs… So the idea is to take our characters and do things to them. If the red suit became the black suit, we still want to see the spider. The whole idea behind it is like "Spidey no more." We just cannot wait for him to don the suit again.
So when we go into this metaphor the whole idea is to know Peter is still inside. There are parts of Peter now that are troubled and therefore it's all about metaphors. All these comics. But you want to make the connection. We want to make sure that it's clear, "Yeah, it is the same guy. He's going through something. And, God willing, everything is going to come back." As we say, the saga continues.
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