BSP 2014 Advent Calendar: Day 20

Welcome to Day 20 of Bam Smack Pow’s 2014 Advent Calendar! Only five more days left until Christmas, and that means five more superhero films will be mined for trivia. For Day 20, we give you …

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

With all the flack given to Sony for their current The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, there was a time when the studio actually made a great Spider-Man movie. In the Sam Raimi-era of the Spider-Man franchise, the film series started off strong with Spider-Man (2002), but Raimi went full steam ahead and bested himself with the release of Spider-Man 2 (2004) — one of the few film sequels in Hollywood that actually surpassed the first installment both critically and financially.

Spider-Man 2 was released to widespread acclaim, with most of the praise going to Alfred Molina’s complex portrayal of Doctor Octopus. The film grossed over $40 million on its opening day alone and went on to earn a worldwide total of over $738 million.

Spider-Man 2 was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Alvin Sargent from a story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Michael Chabon, and starred Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson, James Franco as Harry Osborn, Alfred Molina as Dr. Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus, Rosemary Harris as May Parker, J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, Donna Murphy as Rosalie Octavius, Daniel Gillies as John Jameson, Dylan Baker as Dr. Curt Connors, Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin, and Mageina Tovah as Ursula Ditkovich.

Trivia

Filming started before an official script was even ready.
The opening sequence that recaps the events of Spider-Man (2002) featured artwork by legendary comic artist Alex Ross.
The scene where Peter Parker throws his Spider-Man outfit in the garbage is an homage to an illustration seen in The Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967).
One of the Spider-Man headshots used by the Daily Bugle was from a promotional image for the comic book mini-series Marvels (1994). The artwork was painted by Alex Ross.
The name of Peter Parker’s landlord, Mr. Ditkovitch, is a tribute to the co-creator of Spider-Man, Steve Ditko.
The film featured two future villains in Spider-Man’s rogues gallery. The first was John Jameson, J. Jonah Jameson’s son, who would later become Man-Wolf. The second was Dr. Curt Connors, who later become the Lizard. Dr. Curt Connors / The Lizard would later appear as the main villain in the first installment of the series reboot The Amazing Spider-Man (2012).
The alley where Peter Parker throws his Spider-Man outfit away is the same alley where he kissed Mary Jane in the first movie.
Director Sam Raimi originally intended the film to have a 1.85:1 ratio, but in order to have Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus in the same shot, the frame would’ve needed to be wider to accommodate Doctor Octopus’s tentacles. The film was then upgraded to a 2.35:1 ratio.
To simulate the menacing sounds of Doctor Octopus’s tentacles, motorcycle chains and piano wires were used. In the scene where he tears open a bank vault, the sound effects crew used a hubcap scraping across the floor.
When fully extended, each of Doctor Octopus’s tentacles were 13 feet long. They could also be fully articulated.
When Spider-Man slings his web and it touches something, the sound is made by a cassette’s magnetic tape and leather strips hitting the floor.
In negotiations, Tobey Maguire’s agent asked Columbia Pictures for $25 million or 10% of the gross, whichever was better. The studio denied the request.
When talking to Mary Jane, Peter Parker asks her if she’s still in the “Village”, obviously referring to Greenwich Village in New York. However, the double-meaning refers to her dropping out of M. Night Shaymalan’s The Village (2004) in order to make Spider-Man 2.
Because Tobey Maguire was a vegetarian, the scene where he’s eating a hot dog, he’s actually eating a tofu dog.
When Peter Parker flips over an oncoming car, Tobe Maguire was the one doing the stunt. A stuntman was originally used, but director Sam Raimi thought Maguire’s movements were more natural.
The two boys who hand Peter Parker back his Spider-Man mask are cameos by Tobey Maguire’s real life half-brothers — Weston Epp and Jopaul Epp.
The dinner scene with Peter Parker, Dr. Octavius, and Rosalie Octavius was meant as a visual representation to the family life Peter wished he had.
The train fight between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus was Sam Raimi’s idea and was the first major sequence to be filmed.
Robert DeNiro, Sam Neill, Ed Harris, David Duchovny, Liev Schreiber, and Chris Cooper were all originally considered for the role of Doctor Octopus. Cooper would later go on to portray Norman Osborn in the sequel to the rebooted franchise The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).
When Doctor Octopus goes through the painful process of attaching the tentacles to his body, real needles were in fact used during filming.
Alfred Molina, who played Doctor Octopus, gave each of his four tentacles names — Larry, Harry, Flo, and Moe. Flo was the top right tentacle because it was operated by a female and was the most nurturing, like a mother. That tentacle was the one that removed his sunglasses and held his cup.
Alfred Molina was actually concurrently performing in Fiddler on the Roof and filming Spider-Man 2. In a scene where Doctor Octopus climbs a wall, Molina hummed If I Were a Rich Man to himself. The tentacle puppeteers heard this and moved his tentacles to the rhythm of the song.
On a poster for Mary Jane’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest, a comment reads, “J. Frazier is especially effective!” “J. Frazier” refers to the film’s special effects director, John Frazier.
The phone number (212 – 366 – 1182) and pizzeria name seen on Peter Parker’s helmet were actually from a real pizzeria in New York — Joe’s Pizza.
When Peter Parker bends down to retrieve his dropped books, he’s hit on the head twice by the backpacks of passing students. Though the face is not seen, the second backpack was worn by Sam Raimi making a cameo as a student.
Sam Raimi’s 1973 Oldmobile Delta 88, nicknamed The Classic, is parked in Aunt May’s driveway.
Like in most of Sam Raimi’s movies, the bourbon whiskey Maker’s Mark appears.
One of the headstones in the graveyard scene bears the name of Neil Spisak, who was a production designer on the film.
The original title for this sequel was supposed to be The Amazing Spider-Man. That title would later be used as the overall franchise name for the reboot. Other titles that were proposed to test audiences were Spider-Man: No More (a direct reference to the title given to The Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967)), Spider-Man 2 Lives, and Spider-Man: Unmasked.
To avoid film pirates and bootleggers, the film was sent to theaters under the fake title Spray Paint.
The band Dashboard Confessional agreed to write a song for the credits on one condition: that they be allowed to watch an advanced screening of the movie. The studio agreed and the lead singer, Chris Carrabba, wrote the song Vindicated within ten minutes after seeing it.
Stan Lee originally filmed his cameo shouting, “Hey, Spider-Man stole that guy’s pizza!” Due to problems with the shot, it was re-filmed with another actor. Lee still did a cameo, albeit a more heroic one.
Phil LaMarr makes a cameo as a passenger on the subway.
The man who meets Spider-Man in the elevator and compliments him on his outfit is a cameo by Michael Novotny, a character on Queer as Folk who’s played by Hal Sparks. The character of Michael Novotny is a gay man who’s obsessed with comic books and superheroes, and dreams of meeting one.
Danny Elfman, who had worked with Sam Raimi in the past, had a falling out with the director during filming. The two would later mend their difference and work on Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).

Make sure to come back each day because we still have five more days worth of superhero film trivia for you!

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A special thanks to Eric Dufresne for his amazing geometric superhero art that’s being used as the background for the advent calendar.

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