Spider-Man is fortunate enough to have more hits than misses on the big screen, but things very nearly went horribly wrong for the wall-crawler back in 1985 thanks to Cannon Films.
After paying $22,5000 for a five-year option on the character, the studio (best known for making B-List schlock) decided to take Spidey down a similar route to David Cronenberg's
The Fly. Directed by Tobe Hooper (
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and written by Leslie Stevens (
Outer Limits), their idea for the franchise didn't exactly stick to the source material!
According to
Digital Spy,
"instead of being bitten by a radioactive spider, Parker was deliberately bombarded with radiation by a corporate scientist – named Doctor Zork – who transforms the ID photographer (not student, or journalist) into a giant eight-armed spider-hybrid, who’s so monstrous he swiftly becomes suicidal."
They add that "This man-spider is encouraged to lead the scientist’s race of mutants, but refuses and fights the creations instead." Stan Lee was understandably unhappy with the idea and convinced them to drop it. Had this Spider-Man movie happened, though, it's hard to imagine that we would have gotten Sam Raimi's version in the early 2000s.
After all, superhero movies were few and far between at the time, and there's no way Sony Pictures would have been interested in the webhead after a disastrous effort like this.
What do you guys think?