Indeed, a genre director by trade before transitioning to Hollywood dramas and (eventually) superhero blockbusters, Raimi cut his teeth on groovy horror flicks like the Evil Dead trilogy. What those movies lacked in budget they made up for with copious amounts of style, drawing attention to canted camera angles and aggressive, swooshing movements. Raimi brought the same gonzo energy to many a Spider-Man scene in the 2000s too. The sequence where Molina’s Doc Ock slaughters a room full of surgeons is a particular showcase for gleeful cinematic carnage being unleashed in the typically squeaky clean realm of superhero movies.
Holland also tells us that working with Molina and others from the original movies presented a cool opportunity to compare notes about how things were done differently back then versus how Marvel Studios produces superhero movies now.
“There was quite a lot of [comparing notes], actually,” says Holland, “especially with Alfred, because I think back in the day his arms were puppeteered, and obviously in this film they’re completely CG. So I think it gave him a lot more creative freedom in the way that you can move around the set. It was really nice to see someone kind of adapt to the new way of filmmaking.”
Zendaya also basks in the thrill of working with Molina and Dafoe as colleagues after growing up with them in these very roles.
“It was crazy,” Zendaya says. “Unreal. In fact, there were days when Tom would ask us to come in, just as emotional support, because it’s a crazy thing.”
Holland likewise teases that he would have Zendaya and Batalon come to set on days they weren’t even in the scene, especially for a major sequence he’s not at liberty to describe.
