One look at recent studio acquisitions of comic book properties and it doesn't take a genie to predict that superheroes are having a comeback.

At least two of Tinseltown's rising stars have already said "no" to life in tights. Freddie Prinze Jr., whose new film, Boys and Girls, opens Friday, says he could have been in X-Men but is instead considering Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.

The spiky-haired beau of Buffy has been a serious comic book fan — and comics collector — since he was an adolescent in New Mexico.

The 24-year-old heartthrob has befriended Marvel maven Stan Lee (whom he calls Stanley) and intends to play a comic book superhero some day but not just in any movie. He was pursued by 20th Century Fox to come aboard another Marvel adventure, X-Men, but passed. "I didn't like the script," he admits. "I'm a big fan of the comic book, and I like the stories that have happened within Stanley's universe, and this was Fox's version. This was cool, but I had something visually different in my head. But it [probably] wouldn't have worked out anyway; I would have gone in and not been what they wanted."

Maybe it was a smart strategy, since Fox has just canceled its press junket for X-Men, which is never a sign of confidence. (Yesterday's Toronto Sun reported that director Bryan Singer is still working on the final cut of the film and may miss the July 14 date altogether.)

Instead, Prinze has his hopes up to play one of the comic heroes of his boyhood: Peter Parker, a k a Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and due to film later this year for Sam Raimi (A Simple Plan, Darkman) at Columbia Pictures. "I've met with Sam Raimi and had a conversation," Prinze says. "Peter Parker is the most human of all the characters Stanley has created. He's a kid with a normal kid's problems, only he's dealing with them as superhero."

It's good that Prinze is gung-ho on Spider-Man, because Heath Ledger has already turned it down. The blond, Australian Ledger, who just turned 21 and is expected to become one of the hottest newcomers around after playing Mel Gibson's son in The Patriot this summer, confirms his pass on the film: "I won't be flying as Spider-Man. I talked to Sam [Raimi], and it's a great script and will be a great movie, but I don't want to bear the responsibilities of being an action hero."

But didn't it do great things for Gibson? "Mad Max isn't like Batman or Superman," Ledger explains. "You sort of become that — and it's not doing one movie, it's the option of the next two also. And the next thing of turning up in supermarkets for Spider-Man functions. I don't want to live on as Spider-Man or be remembered for one role in my life. I'd like to be able to look at my career, eventually, as a collection and see everything I've done as one [developing] role, instead of individual movies.

"It's also because I haven't done that many movies right now. Maybe if I'd done 20 movies [already], that would be OK."

- Stephen Schaefer

June 14, 2000

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