Spider-Man 3 isn't a good movie (to put it kindly). After the critical and financial success of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, Sam Raimi raised the stakes for the third film in the trilogy by including not one, not two but three classic villains for Peter Parker to battle it out with.
Turns out that wasn't such a good idea, and don't even get us started about "emo Parker." It was a dark time for all of us. But a recent confession by Raimi himself might make you feel a little better. The director is fully aware that Spider-Man 3 didn't live up to expectations.
He recently spoke down with the Nerdist podcast for a candid discussion about his films, and when the subject of Spider-Man 3 came up he didn't shy away from addressing what went wrong.
"It's a movie that just didn't work very well," Raimi says. "I tried to make it work, but I didn't really believe in all the characters, so that couldn't be hidden from people who loved Spider-Man. If the director doesn't love something, it's wrong of them to make it when so many other people love it. I think [raising the stakes after Spider-Man 2] was the thinking going into it, and I think that's what doomed us. I should've just stuck with the characters and the relationships and progressed them to the next step and not tried to top the bar...
" [But] directors don't like to talk about their bad films."
When show host Chris Hardwick chimed in to say "I don't think 'bad' is the right word," Raimi himself replied with one word instead that could be used to describe Spider-Man 3: "Awful."
Those are some harsh words coming from the man who spent years of his life working to create the film, but at least he's honest. Most fans feel the same way, so maybe now that Raimi has acknowledged the film as a mistake we can all begin the healing process.
