The Amazing Spider-Man was released in 2012 and served as a reboot for the franchise after Sam Raimi's
Spider-Man trilogy. There were some things fans liked about the movie and an awful lot that they didn't, but it was certainly pretty fun watching the web-slinger finally battle The Lizard in a live-action setting.
The only real problem with that was the fact that The Lizard looked...well, pretty terrible! Given a human-like face, the iconic comic book villain was a far cry from his comic book counterpart.
Now, though, we've rounded up a gallery of concept art from
The Amazing Spider-Man showing just how different Rhys Ifans' version of The Lizard could have looked way back in 2012. There are some crazy alternate takes here, including some that are frightening, and others that appear to be much closer to the source material. There's even a few you might end up hating!
The highlight here has to be a shot of the Lizard wearing his trademark lab coat from the comic books, battling Spider-Man in the sewers (it's like seeing the source material come to life).
To take a look at this artwork, use the "Next" button to click through this amazing gallery!
This version of the Lizard keeps that humanoid face but a few small changes make him quite a bit more frightening and definitely more reptilian in nature than what ended up on screen.
We're not entirely sure that the stripes work but his posture and the claws make Curt Connors look particularly fierce here. In some ways, though, he's a little too animalistic.
This looks like something out of a horror movie but, honestly, he appears to be more like Morbius than The Lizard! As scary creature designs go, this was a solid effort on Sony's part.
Aside from some changes in terms of the character's colour, this is very close to what ended up on screen. Ifans was able to get across some emotion thanks to that face but it just didn't work.
This leans heavily into the idea of Connors being part-human, part-lizard and if that face looks familiar, it's because it was based on
X-Men: First Class actor Michael Fassbender!
This is more like it and it's interesting to see that this version was Hulk-like in some respects. He's massive and similar to The Lizard who was rebooted in the comics during the "Shed" storyline.
We're not entirely sure what's supposed to be happening here but it's downright bizarre and way too human even if the point was to head down the body horror route in
The Amazing Spider-Man.
The same applies to this take on the fan-favourite comic book villain and while it's possible that what we're seeing here is Connors in mid-transformation, it's just a little too strange for our liking!
This is pretty much the Lizard that ended up terrorising Spider-Man in the movie and while Sony was inspired by the character's early appearances, it just didn't translate well to live-action.
This isn't too different to the final version but a few small changes like his stature and teeth ensure that the Lizard looks a little more badass and not remotely as cartoonish as what was in the film.
Sony clearly gravitated towards a human-like Lizard but there are plenty of monstrous versions throughout the rest of this post which take him in a direction comic book fans would have loved.
Here's one such example. He still doesn't have that snout but this is yet another Lizard who looks like the stuff of nightmares rather than Goomba from the live-action
Super Mario movie.
These may only be sketches but that version of the Lizard in the middle looks like he's been torn straight out of the pages of the comic books and is even wearing his trademark lab coat!
There's no real indication that Marvel Studios has plans to bring the Lizard back to the big screen but if Kraven is going to be the next movie's villain, then it would be fun to see him show up.
This is a fun alternate take on the character but it's still flawed and probably not what the vast majority of fans would like to see on screen while thinking about the Spider-Man villain.
This is just plain creepy! Yet another piece showcasing Curt's transformation into the Lizard (it was definitely something of a slow burn), we're glad this didn't get much in the way of screentime.
There's really no reason why the Lizard couldn't have kept his trademark lab coat on during his battles with Spider-Man but Sony thought otherwise so we never got a scene like this.
This is the stuff of nightmares and as terrifying as The Lizard looks in some ways, he's almost too alien and those teeth really aren't big enough to do much damage to the webbed warrior.
In the Ultimate line of comic books, the Green Goblin is also a giant green monster and this piece of artwork looks more like him than what you would expect from The Lizard.
This is much better, though, and the sort of animalistic Lizard which would have further emphasised that the man known as Curt Connor had become a complete beast after his transformation.
The Amazing Spider-Man took a lot of liberties with the source material but a lot of Curt's origin story was accurate and here we see him injecting himself with that fateful serum to regrow his arm.
The decision to have Curt slowly transform into the Lizard worked in some ways but took away a lot of the tragedy surrounding the character in others as it prolonged things a little too much.
As part of The Lizard's plan, he wanted to transform the Big Apple's citizens into lizards as well. That included New York's finest and here we get to see the process of that from start to (almost) finish.
We've heard of lab rats but this might be taking things too far! Before transforming himself, Curt experimented on the rodents and, as you can see, the results were pretty damn horrific.
What do you guys think about this concept art for The Amazing Spider-Man? Do you think these versions of The Lizard would have been better than what ended up on the big screen?