CHAPTER 2:
MR. PARKER GOES TO SONY
When James Cameron was (accidenally) given the right to say who gets credits on his Spider-Man flick, he refused to put Golan, a producer who sold the rights to the studio, as a porducer on the final product. Gloan was enraged. He publically spoke against Cameron and Carolco Pictures. He even went as far as trying to take legal action.But Cameron was all "My contract said I could say no to you so..."
While this was going on, Carolco had other legal issues. They were suing Viacom and Columbia Pictures in order to recover broadcast rights. And if THAT wasn't bad enough, FOX (who had nothing to do with this whatsoever) tried to speak against Cameron. As a result, in 1996, Marvel, Carolco, and FOX went bankrupt.
Due to Carolco's bankruptcy, it was MGM who acquired their film library and assets. While Carolco may have ended due to banruptcy, Marvel picked itself back up by merging with ToyBiz. Plus, due to the fact that the rights have gone from studio to studio, and that MGM had the rights because of Carolco, the rights went back to Marvel and they gave it to Sony,meaning Cameron's version was ditched. Which means we'll never see Spider-Man and Mary Jane have sex on top of a bridge.
Just Kidding.
When Sony got their hands on Spidey, several directors were considered. One director was M. Night Shyamalan. His pitch had Aunt May was the Green Goblin, the spider that bit Peter gave him his powers in order to find someone to fight, all the character's names would be pronounced wrong, and Gwen Stacy's death would be depicted as her being dead the whole time and Peter was dating a ghost. If you couldn't tell, I'm making this all up.
There were two directors who came really close to getting the directing gig. The first was Chris Columbus. However, he left to direct Harry Potter.
Another director who came really close was David Fincher. Fincher didn't want to tell the origin story. In fact, the first ten minutes was supposed to be a music video that told the audience everything they needed to know, his origin, his uncle's death, and him meeting Gwen. The movie with Gwen's death. However, the studio wasn't a fan of his idea.
So Sony got Sam Raimi for the job. Raimi was excited to work on this film because he loved comics. In fact, his previous superherofilm, Darkman, was a retooling of his rejected scripts for The Shadow and Batman.
As for writing, they got Jurassic Park screenwriter,David Koepp, to write a draft. Koepp's draft was heavily inspired by Cameron's script. In fact, his draft included Cameron's versions of Sandman and Electro. Koepp rewrote his draft and substitued Electro and Sandman for Green Goblin and Doc Ock, with the Goblin as the main villain. Raimi liked the inclusion of Norman Osborn and the Goblin because he liked the idea of him and Peter having a surrogate father/son relationship.
One major thing Koepp kept from Cameron's script was Spider-Man having organic webbing. Raimi said that mechanical webshooters would not be realistic. So, let me get this straight. A guy gets bitten by a special type of spider and get superpowers because of SCIENCE, that's okay. Mechanical Webshooters? Woah, that's going way too far. Oh well, at least they didn't keep this:
Koepp's draft was rewritten by Scott Rosenberg, though Koepp was the only one to get credit. Rosenberg removed Doc Ock because they were already telling the origins of Spidey and the Goblin, and they felt a thrid one would be too much. Thankfully, they followed through and never did anything like that...
But I digress. Now for casting. Elizabeth Banks auditioned to play Mary Jane, but was cast as Betty Brant. Other actresses considered for MJ were Kate Hudson, Elisha Cuthbert, and Eliza Dushku. As for Spider-Man, Wes Bentley, Josh Harnett, and Jake Gyllenhaal were considered for the role before Tobey Maguire. For Norman, Robert De Niro, John Travolta, and Nic Cage were considered. Billy Cudrupp came the closest to getting the role until Willem Defoe was cast.
Let's talk about controversey. YAY! The film's original trailer had four robbers rob a bank. They escaped in a helicopter, but it got stuck in a web between two skyscrapers. The camera would pan out to reveal Spidey and the trailer was a big hit. However, those two skycrapers were the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Did I mention this trailer was released in 2001? After 9/11, the trailer was taken down from theaters,and a poster with an image of the Twin Towers in Spidey's eye was also removed.
Let's talk about happeir things. When the movie was released, it got great reviews, even better reviews than X-Men and Blade. They praised the acting, action, characters,and writing. However, when it cameto the box office, it was legendary. It became the first movie to make over $100million dollars in it's opening weekend, making it the record-holder for the highest opening, beating out Harry Potter. It became the second highest-grossing film domistically, just behind Titanic. Which was directed by James Cameron. REVENGE!
So Spidey was one of the three films that were not only the first good Marvel films, but were also the starters of a CBM boom that continues to this day. The other two were Blade and X-Men. All three films were rewarded with sequels. With Spidey's next film, people saw it as not just one of the best CBMs, but also the best Spider-Man film.
TO BE CONTINUED...