Video suggests Emma Stone should be the new Spider-Man

By Joe Blevins | September 28, 2015 | 7:09pm

Aux Features Film

Video suggests Emma Stone should be the new Spider-Man

Boy, that last Spider-Man franchise went off the rails quickly, huh? Just two movies in and pfffffft. Even star Andrew Garfield apologized for his lackluster performance as the friendly neighborhood web-slinger. Maybe what the series needed was a whole lot less of Garfield’s Peter Parker—ideally, none at all—and a whole lot more of Emma Stone’s awesome Gwen Stacy. A new fantasy trailer from New York Magazine’s Vulture Remix series, Spider-Gwen, nimbly demonstrates what a female-led Spider reboot might be like. The underlying premise is anything but novel, as there has been a Spider-Woman in comics since 1977, and the character even had her own eponymous ABC series in 1980. But Spider-Gwen has something extra: the undeniable charisma of Emma Stone. Vulture’s reimagining of the franchise casts a super-powered Stone as a young woman who decides to use her extraordinary arachnid abilities to fight crime, vigilante-style, putting her in direct conflict with her conservative police captain father, portrayed by Denis Leary.

Vulture’s fantasy trailer, which was directed and edited by Alex Coulombe, is quite an elaborate affair, culling footage from various Spider-Man movies and combining that with clips of other Emma Stone films, including Easy A and Birdman. In this version of the story, interestingly, Michael Keaton’s avian-themed costumed character could be a potential enemy for Stone to vanquish. Director Coulombe added newly-shot footage of Julianne Cancalosi in action as Spider-Gwen, with a specially-designed black-and-white costume all her own provided by Cantaloupe Cosplay, to the preexisting Emma Stone clips. To bridge the new footage and the borrowed footage, Coulombe used his VFX wizardry to put Stone into the sleek, hooded Spider-Gwen ensemble for a few seconds. The overall effect is stunning, as the trailer makes a good case for turning Spider-Gwen into a real, full-length motion picture. For Sony, whose box office and other woes have been legendary lately, it’s certainly worth a shot.