Yesterday brought a fresh look at the Lizard, the big bad of Marc Webb’s new take on Marvel’s web-slinging hero, The Amazing Spider-Man. And we’ve known for a few days now that the latest trailer for the movie would be arriving today. Well, you can finally take a look at the footage over at Apple.

The Amazing Spider-Man presents a new take on Peter Parker’s early days, with Andrew Garfield taking over the lead and Emma Stone as lady love Gwen Stacy. Rhys Ifans co-stars as Dr Curt Connors, who dabbles in regenerative science and ends up transforming into a hulking, reptilian brute bent on destruction. Science: out to destroy us again.

Empire was invited to watch the new promo in all its 3D glory (the trailer will be squatting before The Avengers in cinemas this weekend) a day ago and also got a chance to chat with Webb about bringing Peter Parker and co back to life on the big screen.

Asked what his most important aim was when it came to putting his stamp on territory that has been previously covered by Sam Raimi and a legion of comic book writers and artists, Webb didn’t hesitate: “I wanted to do things differently. I feel like we've seen the origin of Spider-Man but maybe we haven't seen the origin of Peter Parker. There are certain iconic elements that I felt obligated to honour. But there are some exploratory phases that I wanted to do.”

As for bringing the Lizard to life, the process was more involved than simply dreaming up a CG beastie: “There is a lot that goes into it. When we shot those sequences, we actually shot a human, a large guy named Big John. He was literally a big guy named John, who did a lot of the interactive stuff. Because when you're trying to interact with Andrew as Peter, you need someone grabbing him to do those things. We would replace him with the computer-generated lizard. But then the performance capture was done with Rhys and we'd shoot him in a similar environment and get his facial information. We're still working on it, incorporating his performance into the Lizard itself. That takes an enormous amount of time, and it's tricky.”

But while fans of the comics may wonder where the creature’s new look comes from, Webb explains his thinking. “In the comics there are different incarnations of the Lizard. There's the one with the snout and I was interested more in finding one that could relate human emotions, because I wanted to keep Rhys' performance in that creature. So getting that nuance and the eyebrow tics and looks and creating an armature that can speak and lips that make sounds is a very detailed process. But I wanted him to have emotion, to have feelings and a face and that's the way I chose to do that. Then there are the physical components of it – I wanted to make him very powerful and stronger than Spider-Man."

With Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary, C Thomas Howell, Irrfan Khan and Chris Zylka also in the cast, The Amazing Spider-Man will be out on July 3.