Everybody hates the beginning. It’s necessary, but once you’ve seen it, you’re ready to move on. We’ve seen this in every movie franchise reboot of late from the new Fantastic Four to Superman, the Hulk and Spider-Man, each start over is met with general displeasure by the fans of the franchise who’s opinion is, we already saw this, let’s move on. We already saw them get bit by the spider, get doused by cosmic rays and lose really bad so they get high draft picks then develop those picks through the minor league system, get to know them at the Major League level and see them become MLB veterans.
It is convenient that much of the Spider-Man franchise has been filmed in Cleveland as there are many similarities between it and the teams therein (even going back to the 1890’s when Cleveland’s baseball team was called the Spiders). As a super hero, Spider-Man has always kind of been at the little kids table, not enough money or experience to be at the level of an Iron Man or Captain America. While he may have been more popular among readers of the comics, he was not within the stories themselves.
Taking the analogy further, the recent movie franchise itself has mirrored the Indians as well. Picture the 2002 Sam Raimi version as the 2005 team. It was the beginning of something new. Nobody really knew James Franco or Grady Sizemore outside of the die hard fans and the young teams put together something much greater than they were expected to. Things were certainly looking up. Dr. Octopus came in for 2007 with the Tribe as the now veteran franchise used its established names to become one of the best around. Both the success of the movie and the team lead everyone to imagine great things were to come, but injuries and a terribly CGI’d Venom tore them apart at the last second.
Continuing with the similarities, rather than attempt to build on tattered remains, both franchises started over. One brought on Terry Francona, the other Marc Webb. One Andrew Garfield, the other Jason Kipnis and while continuing with the same name, both franchises were completely changed (in 2013 for the Indians, 2012 for the Spider-Men). Again there was some early success (a Wild Card loss and decent returns, about $32M, for The Amazing Spider-Man), but the sequels didn’t stand up to the original. While you can’t place too much blame on Jamie Foxx or Brandon Moss, there’s more to the game than painting your face blue.
The Indians and Spider-Man are now again at a similar precipice. While much of the Amazing Spider-Man 2 was about setting up a third movie (as much of this season has been about setting up a World Series run in 2016 and 2017), Sony studios has already abandoned Garfield and given at least some of the rights to Spider-Man back to Marvel so he can be included in the next Captain America movie. They are essentially starting over with a new group of rookies.
The Indians have a much stronger position. They’ve locked up their stars for a long time (more like other Marvel franchises locking up Robert Downey, Jr. and Hugh Jackman) and they have a good core of talented, motivated players. One’s who hopefully won’t give up in the third act because they want the team to fail (this statement is 100% directed at black Spider-Man Tobey Maguire and no one else).
That being said, there has been more dissension coming out of the locker room this season than I can ever remember and if at some point the Indians decided to change producer (Chris Antonetti) or director (Terry Francona) it would probably be a mistake, but not a huge surprise.
The Super Hero movie business has a lot in common with baseball. They are fighting for your entertainment dollar at both live events (in theaters and stadiums) and at your home (on TV, MLB.tv or Netflix among others). They both want the free advertising of people wearing their merchandise and success can be judged similarly. The more popular a movie is, the more money it will make. The same is true of a baseball team and when either is terrible, very few people will pay to see it.
There is also a huge disparity. Established franchises, the Star Wars (Yankees) and Pirates of the Caribbean (Angels) of the world, have so much backing they can’t help but succeed. Others have to be built from nothing, like Captain America (Nationals) and Iron Man (Pirates). Still others are built perfectly and succeed in every manor, like the Lord of the Rings (Diamondbacks from 1999 through 2001), but aren’t able to maintain that success when they try to recreate it, like the Hobbit and the current, much grittier, but less talented Diamondbacks.
To make ridiculous analogies even more extreme, Chris Johnson was bit by a spider last weekend and is now on the disabled list after missing multiple games with the swelling. If this is a sign, he needs to be converted to right field right now where his new wall climbing abilities will be most useful.
Bringing things back to reality, there is a reason people hate reboots. We want to see something different. We’ve seen the scrappy young team that outperforms expectations, those older than 30 have seen this at least four times (late 1980’s, early 1990’s, mid 2000’s, mid 2010’s) and we’ve seen the veteran team that almost gets there as well (in 1995-1999 and 2007). What Cleveland fans haven’t seen from the Indians, Cavaliers or the Browns is the veteran team that almost won once come back and actually win it the second time.
For the Indians at least, it’s time to make Spider-Man 3 the right way. Forget the Green Goblin (Michael Bourn), we’ve already dealt with him. Include Venom, but don’t make it a last second addition and spend enough to get someone with more credit than a few seasons of That 70’s Show. Keep the director, the producer and all the major actors and try to do what Sony couldn’t, complete the climax of the third act.
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