Marc Webb's 2012 "The Amazing Spider-Man" trilogy reboot was completed with mixed reception from fans and casual moviegoers, and it was noticeable that some of the central characters in Spidey's life did not make much of an impact in the films. Apparently, Academy Award-winning actress Sally Field, who played Aunt May, was also not too pleased with her role and she revealed this on "The Howard Stern Show."
When Stern asked Field about how she felt about the "Spider-Man" films, she admitted that it was not really the type of film she is interested in and that her participation was mainly because she wanted to work again with her first-ever producing partner, Laura Ziskin.
"[My] friend Laura Ziskin was the producer, and we knew it would be her last film, and she was my first producing partner, and she was a spectacular human," Field admitted. Ziskin passed away in 2011 after a long battle with breast cancer, just a few months after filming for "The Amazing Spider-Man" wrapped.
Field's dissatisfaction with the film is not just because she was only attached to the film for Ziskin's sake but because she did not find much to get attached to Aunt May's character.
"It's really hard to find a three-dimensional character in it, and you work it as much as you can, but you can't put 10 pounds of s--- in a 5-pound bag," Field said.
Field does have a point because Aunt May is a strong, wise and resilient character who is just as, if not even more, amazing than Spider-Man but she seems to have been sidelined in the reboot. More often than not, Field's Aunt May just existed in the universe to conveniently share a nugget of wisdom with Peter. Like so:
It is true that Uncle Ben is the one who gives Peter the decision-making motto "With great power comes great responsibility," but it is Aunt May who experiences the aftermath but still keeps Peter in check, so it was really unfortunate that Aunt May was more like a prop than a dynamic person in the films.
Perhaps it is time for Sony to make amends and actually move forward with the rumored Aunt May spin-off.
Then again, perhaps we can just hope that the yet another Spider-Man reboot in July 2017 will not lead Marisa Tomei to say the same thing of her version of Aunt May.
