Are you ready for the new 'Spider-Man'?

Watching the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man, I already feel old. It feels like just yesterday that I was watching Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man giving Kirsten Dunst that iconic upside-down kiss. Man, that background music makes that moment feel so cheesy. On second thought, maybe it is time for a new Spider-Man.

However, the fact that they're re-booting the franchise just five years after the third film starring the original cast of characters signals so much that's wrong with Hollywood. Spider-Man "4" was originally going to star Maguire and Dunst and be directed by Sam Raimi. It was only after those oft-cited "creative differences" emerged that Columbia went ahead with an all-new cast and director. The trailer shows us we'll be getting a lot more of the same-old. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have the same feel as original stars Maguire and Dunst (even though Stone plays Gwen Stacy, not the Dunst role of Mary Jane Watson). IMDB says Rhys Ifans plays "Dr. Connor/The Lizard," so that solves who the mysterious green, monstrous enemy in the trailer is right off the bat--though comic book fans undoubtedly knew that already.

One thing I'm excited about is that an entire set piece appears to take place on the Williamsburg Bridge. I live near the bridge, and last year I saw the production filming a number of times. One night, they trained high-powered lights on the bridge that lit it up from end to end. I thought that was the kind of thing that was normally done in CGI, so the time, money, and effort that went into that impressed me. I was completely charmed by director Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer, but I wonder how much of that sensibility will translate to this big-budget, action-centered production.

Of all the superhero franchises, Spider-Man definitely skews young. There certainly isn't the kind of darkness in the Batman series that changed with each director's iteration and made the superhero have appeal beyond the youth set. If they're only going for kids, perhaps it makes sense that a reboot will occur just ten years after the original and five years after the third film in the franchise. 

I can't help feeling a little bored with it all. The Amazing Spider-Man will have to live up to something that's only ten years old in our cultural memory. When Hollywood is already remaking something that premiered in this millennium, how can they expect adults to show up? And how can original screenplays ever have a shot?