The director said that he felt obliged to put his own stamp on the extensive material which already existed about the web-slinging superhero.
"[Spider-Man]'s been around since the 1960s," Webb told the Los Angeles Times. "The wealth of material here - whether it's story or character - is really profound but I also feel it's my responsibility to reinvent it in some ways."
Webb went on to describe how he conceived of a fresh angle for the character.
"Peter Parker is a science whiz," Webb said. "If you look back to the early Stan Lee and Steve Ditko comics, he's a nerd with big glasses. The idea of what a nerd is has changed in 40 or 50 years. Nerds are no longer pariahs and knowing how to write computer code is no longer a [mocked] quality.
"What was important in those early comics was this notion that Peter Parker is an outsider and how we define that in a contemporary context."
Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield previously revealed that he relates to his character's alter ego Peter Parker.
Emma Stone, who plays Gwen Stacy in the film, has admitted that being a part of The Amazing Spider-Man is more terrifying than she originally realised thanks to the movie's extensive fan base.
Watch the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man below:
