This is truly a fantastic era for Spider-Man fans. Spider-Man: No Way Home allowed audiences to witness the very unexpected team up of three live action Spider-Men fighting together against several iconic Spider-Man villains. Audiences fell in love as the film became one of the biggest blockbusters in recent memory. However before that film, there was another that audiences didn’t get to see.
For those who are unaware, a Spider-Man live action iteration was planned to be made by writer/director James Cameron before Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man film was released. So how did this all come to be? Cameron’s Spider-Man project supposedly began development in 1983 with a screenplay written by Barry Cohen and Ted Newsom.
Now what was going to happen in this version? One of the earliest versions was set to star Michael Biehn as an old Peter Parker and the other with Leonardo DiCaprio as a more comic accurate Parker. Cameron chose Electro as his film’s main villain while Doctor Octopus was also meant to make an appearance. His film was supposed to be a much darker version than the films audience have grown accustomed to as this film was set to contain more mature themes and sexual content.
Now what happened to the project? The primary reason why this project never came to fruition came down to a convoluted legal battle over Spider-Man’s distribution rights. Cannon Films owned the rights first but the studio was then bought by Pathé Communications and the rights were subsequently taken by Pathé producer, Menahem Golan, when he left the company to start up 21st Century Fox. After failing to raise enough capitol, Golan was forced to sell the rights three ways to Carolco Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Viacom.
Cohen and Newsom’s script, along with 20th Century Fox’s catalog, was later sold to MGM before Fox stated that it posessed exclusive rights to the script because of an existing contract. 20th Century Fox, however, were unable to acquire the rights to Spider-Man from the three in which they were sold to thus Cameron was forced to abandon the project and move on to other films.
However this project would have fared is something that audiences will probably never know or ever see but one thing is for sure, at least it would have been interesting.
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