Twelve-year-old me could enthusiastically rattle off every detail of Spider-Man’s comic book legacy: the year the character was first published, which issues featured the first appearance of the Green Goblin or the Punisher or key stories like the death of Gwen Stacy, how many comics Steve Ditko drew or when Stan Lee wrote his final issue of the series. Gigabytes of knowledge amassed by reading thousands of comics collected over many years. But I never believed a Spider-Man movie could be possible – let alone one as big as Spider-Man: Brand New Day – how could web-swinging on screen ever look believable, and why would anyone outside of comic book fans care?
And I certainly never could have guessed that I would spend my adult years working on multiple iterations of the theatrical franchise built around my favourite comic book character, helping ensure that the films’ trailers and marketing campaigns would resonate with generations of new fans.
