‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ trailer hits the web

An impressive new trailer for "The Amazing Spider-Man" debuted late last night, introducing viewers to a grittier and darker version of the webslinger.

Starring Andrew Garfield ("The Social Network") as a teenaged version of Peter Parker, "The Amazing Spider-Man" looks to tell the "untold story" of the iconic superhero. An audacious claim for a film based on a character who turns 50 this year, but if the trailer for the reboot is any indication, the film will be a drastic departure from the web-head's previous big-screen incarnations.

If there is one thing that the trailer makes abundantly clear, it's that this is not the Sam Raimi/Tobey MacGuire version of Spider-Man that audiences are familar with. Those days are over, the trailer seems to scream. Gone is the light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek tone of the Raimi films, replaced with the edgier take that all post-"Batman Begins" superhero movies seemingly must adhere to. The more brooding and intense, the better.

Even familiar characters like Mary Jane Watson and Norman Osborn are absent for this outing. Parker's first comic book girlfriend, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), takes centre stage this go-around, while the wall-crawler's famous reptilian foe The Lizard, aka Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), takes on villain duties.

Director Marc Webb ("500 Days of Summer") has some seriously big shoes to fill. Raimi's "Spider-Man" films grossed almost $2.5 billion dollars worldwide, and 2004's "Spider-Man 2" became one of the best reviewed and financially successful superhero movies of all time. The bloated third film in the series received only mixed reviews, but still managed to earn nearly $1 billion dollars single-handedly.

Despite the new cast and decidedly serious tonal shift, Webb's reboot is pretty much guaranteed to be a better film than the convoluted mess that was "Spider-Man 3." Though, to be fair, almost anything would be an improvement at this point.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" swings into theatres on July 3, 2012 in 3D.

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