While the coronavirus pandemic could delay summer productions like Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man 3 aka Serenity Now (working title), assembling their productions teams to eventually work on those films are seemingly still happening behind the scenes.
DiscussingFilm claims that cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has been added to the production team of director Jon Watt’s third Spider-Man film, which is confirmed to be set in Marvel Cinematic Universe after Disney and Sony Pictures made a deal to keep the character in the MCU for two more movies.
McGarvey’s credits include Godzilla and the original Avengers.
Production on Spider-Man 3 was expected to kick-off this summer, however, pre-production delays due to COVID-19 likely will throw a wrench into that plan. While a lot of stuff in the prep phase can be done at home, things like massive set construction and creating certain props can’t be. Pushing the filming into the fall or winter wouldn’t be that surprising.
Sometimes with production delays or expended hiatuses key production people could end up leaving for a multitude of reasons. You don’t even need a pandemic or delays to cause roster shake-ups, the Black Widow shoot lost cinematographer Rob Hardy during their regular production and was then replaced with Blade II cinematographer Gabriel Beristain.
Today, BFI posted a recent interview with McGarvey which he mentions a production he was working on for mid-July in Los Angeles, California being on pause. However, never mentions what that film is by name.
The Italian-based cinematographer Seamus McGarvey was mired in prep on a big-budget studio production in Los Angeles, set to start rolling in mid-July, when everything halted: “For the past week I’ve been in a strange cinematographic limbo, not knowing if I’ll be able to shoot it or not,” he says. “There is a significant amount of prep that can be done remotely, and we’ve been having daily meetings: work is progressing, and it has to. The film will happen, eventually.”
If this is for Spider-Man 3 it would be odd that it was shooting in California when people were stating that it would shoot in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s also worth noting because of tax incentive filings, big movies don’t often remain secrets in the state of California so it would be odd if a Spider-Man movie was planning to primarily shoot in the state and this information hadn’t already been made public like with Little Shop of Horrors, Birds of Prey, and Captain Marvel previously.
Despite fan speculation including the additions of Deadpool and Daredevil, we don’t know what characters could be showing up. Concerning the latter, director Kevin Smith had to publicly retract a rumor he was promoting on his podcast concerning Daredevil actor Charlie Cox reprising the Matt Murdock role. Stating that he was only echoing something he read on online and wasn’t confirming it.
Perspective: While I, too, hope this rumor is true, please remember that I only talked about it with @marcbernardin on #FatManBeyond after I read about it on the internet, just like everyone else. This means I have no inside info. Much like everybody else, I’m just a hopeful fan. https://t.co/t8Kn080UIY
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) March 17, 2020
We haven’t gotten any concrete information about Spider-Man 3 outside of Peter Parker being framed for the murder of Quentin Beck aka Mysterio and is now on the run as J. Jonah Jameson outed his secret identity. Given that Parker does have some friends in the Avengers, it would be odd if they didn’t appear in some fashion or see the return of Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan that has taken on a surrogate Tony Stark/Uncle Ben role.
There is a good chance that the film won’t be able to make the previously announced release date of July 16th, 2021.
