Andrew Garfield, who plays the lead in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, has complained of studio interference in the film.

Talking to The Daily Beast, he said that he “genuinely loved” the original script, but “certain people at the studio [Sony Pictures] had problems with certain parts of it”. He said:

I think what happened was, through the pre-production, production, and post-production, when you have something that works as a whole, and then you start removing portions of it – because there was even more of it than was in the final cut, and everything was related. Once you start removing things and saying, ‘No, that doesn’t work,’ then the thread is broken, and it’s hard to go with the flow of the story.

He also lamented that “deep scenes” exploring his character Peter Parker were cut.

The film was criticised for being crammed with villains and plot strands, and has only a 53% rating on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes (though the Guardian reviewed it favourably, calling it “savvy, punchy and dashing”). The film somewhat underperformed at the US box office, but made a respectable $708m worldwide.

Garfield said that he was “proud of a lot of it and had a good time, and was a bit taken aback by the response... Is it that this is the fifth Spider-Man movie in however many years, and there’s a bit of fatigue? Is it that there was too much in there? Is it that it didn’t link? If it linked seamlessly, would that be too much? Were there tonal issues? What is it? I think all that is valuable... I love constructive criticism.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Garfield addresses the recent leak of private photos of his peers, including Jennifer Lawrence and others. “It’s disgusting,” he said. “It’s this violent, abusive violation of womanhood – of divine womanhood. It’s violent, and it’s misogynistic, and it’s revolting, and it’s another example of what this [online] distance has enabled us to do – it’s enabled us to be disassociated from each other.”