Meet the New Green Goblin, James Franco

by: Lufguy 1 year, 8 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 23 minutes ago 3

Mike Cotton talks with him at Wizard Universe.

James Franco understands he’s not the first villain fans think of when they talk about “Spider-Man 3.” He knows about the hype surrounding Thomas Haden Church as Sandman, the small time crook who, according to film mythology, actually killed Uncle Ben, and he doesn’t deny the excitement surrounding former TV good guy turned badass Topher Grace, whose Eddie Brock will become Venom.

But the soft spoken, 28 year old character actor, whose feud with Spider-Man as Harry Osborn has grown more vindictive with each new flick, knows something else as well. He knows when “Spider-Man 3” opens on May 4, while Venom and Sandman fight for the spotlight, he’s out for blood, Spider-Man’s blood.

“Between parts two and three, Harry has found new vigor for his designs on Spider-Man and redoubled his efforts,” says Franco, in between a bevy of phone calls and taped interviews to promote the highly anticipated blockbuster. “You’ll find a very determined Harry. In the first two movies, he’s stumbling around, trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. In the third film, he is very clear about his mission and there is nothing that is going to deter him from that.”

Harry Osborn has been a major part of the evolving story between him, Spider-Man / Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). From his early friendship with Peter, to blaming Spider-Man for his father’s death, to a brief fling with Mary Jane, according to Franco, this film brings it all to a head.

“I actually thought after the first movie, ‘Well, in the second one I’m going to come back for him,’” recalls Franco. “I didn’t, though. It was still just a lot of building up, but finally you get to see everything that has been culminating, everything that’s been percolating in Harry and Peter’s relationship.”

Promising a new take on the Green Goblin, a final resolution to Harry and Peter’s friendship and maybe another play for MJ’s heart, Wizard spoke with Franco to get the full scoop on what could be Harry Osborn’s biggest movie yet.

WIZARD: Is Harry separate, in your mind, from the other villains such as Venom and Sandman?

FRANCO: I don’t condone his behavior. [Laughs] But he’s not a traditional villain. He has no desire for world domination. He’s not out to make money with his superpowers. He’s not out to kill anyone else maliciously or force anyone into his belief system or anything like that. He has one mission, and that is to kill Spider-Man.

And although the audience knows his reasoning is off because they know what’s really happened and Harry doesn’t, he’s still somewhat sympathetic because he’s acting out of the belief that his father was murdered.

So in his head, he’s justified, and because of that, and because the audience can see that he’s a confused person, he remains somewhat sympathetic.

Harry’s obviously inherited some of his father’s traits, but now he’s apparently inherited his dad’s legacy as the Green Goblin as well.

The idea is that he’s not your daddy’s Green Goblin. This is the new Goblin and he has redesigned everything, the Glider and the suit and his killing methods, and it’s much more utilitarian. He’s not out to scare anyone. He doesn’t have a mask that is going to strike fear. His gear and his weapons are designed to defeat Spider-Man and to overpower Spider-Man’s specific strengths and weaknesses.

And he’s refined the serum as well, the serum that gave his father, Norman Osborn, heightened strength.

Well, yes. The original Green Goblin derived his strengths from the special Goblin serum and at the end of part two, you see Harry has discovered that serum along with his father’s other gadgets. By drinking that serum he becomes superhuman.

After two films, your character finally gets a costume and some action scenes. How does that feel?

It’s great. The conflict that’s brought to light in this third film has been building over the last two films and he’s never really, Harry has never really been able to express his anger in the first two films. He’s been brooding. It’s been bubbling under the surface and he’s been planning.

Finally, it was great as a character and as an actor to really allow that to come out through violence and just expressing it. It’s great to act and it’s great to just allow the character to finally release all of that.

We didn’t see much of Harry and MJ interacting in the second movie, but this film brings back the triangle between Harry, MJ and Peter, right?

It was dormant in the second one because Harry and Peter were still friends. Peter was tortured because he knows Harry is out to kill Spider-Man, but in Harry’s head, he and Peter were still friends. So there wasn’t any room to go after his friend’s girl, but here, things have changed a bit. Harry has always had feelings for MJ and that triangle is reawakened.

What about the rumors that Harry dies by the time the closing credits roll?

You’ll have to see the movie.

Fair enough. It seems like a lot of the stories from the franchise wrap up here. If this is the last “Spider-Man” film with this team, what will you remember most about the process of making the movies?

[Director] Sam [Raimi’s] approach to the movies. It’s been a realistic approach. Although there are fantastic elements in the film, everyone in the film is going to be portrayed as a real character and their reactions will be realistic and their stories will be human stories.

With the first film, I couldn’t have had any idea about how big it would be or even what the result would be, I hadn’t seen [the final product] since so much of it is done in post-production. It was really hard to picture what the movie would be, but even on the second and now the third film, we’re filming and then when I watch the movie, it’s incredible. It almost doesn’t feel the same. The final result feels so much greater than the work that we put into it. On [“Spider-Man,”] before we started shooting, we did a ton of rehearsals with Willem [Dafoe], Kirsten and Tobey, just to really develop the characters.

So I knew [Raimi’s] intentions were to make a drama that could stand on its own. I think one of the biggest compliments I heard about [“Spider-Man 2”] was that it was a great film even without the action. That just comes, I think, from all the rehearsals and the time that he took to really develop the scenes between the action so that they’re not just filler.

How do you think Sam Raimi is able to balance the action and the character stuff so well in these movies? Is it surprising to you that an action flick of this magnitude has so much heart?

Sam is in the action world and technically at the forefront of movie making, but when he’s on set and working with actors and the crew, I think what’s unique about him is that he’s a great guy, which is very important because he makes everyone feel good about being at work. He gets the best work out of people that way. When I say it, I don’t know, it sounds like a small thing, but I think it’s rare to find someone [like him] on this size of a movie.

The amount of things he has to deal with are incredible. I think at one point [on “Spider-Man 3,”] there were five units going on and in addition to that, he’s got the whole world of special effects going on as well. So between each shot, there’ll be a whole group of people standing around waiting to talk to him, or discuss something that’s very technical about a visual effects shot they’re working on. Then someone will come up and ask him about the editing or how the shot on the second unit looked or how the shot on the third unit looked. He’s got an incredible amount of information to process.

It sounds like a lot of stress. Were there any blow-ups on set?

Sam never loses his cool, ever. I’ve never seen him upset once.

What goes hand in hand with that is he’s incredibly collaborative, which is also amazing on a picture of this size. With the actors, he gives them an immense amount of responsibility to fashion the arcs of their characters. He puts it on the actors to really make sure their character’s story is being told with all the details necessary, and that everything that needs to be brought to light is happening in the film. That is also unique.

You’d think on this size of a movie, you’d have a very clear blueprint and that you were going to stick to that because there are so many parts that need to be managed, and if everyone would just stick to that, it would be fine, right? Although Sam has done an incredible amount of planning, he makes room for change and development. The dramatic scenes on this movie were worked on and discussed more than on almost any other movie I’ve worked on.

Last question: Have you enjoyed other comic book films?

Yeah, I think the “X-Men” series was very, very well done, and I thought “Batman Begins” was pretty amazing. The world they had there was great. I love the original [Tim Burton] “Batman,” too. I thought “Sin City” was pretty bold and amazing, actually.