As you're no doubt well aware, Avengers Campus opens in Disneyland California this summer, and as well as rides and restaurants themed to characters like Ant-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy, there will also be a "Web-Slinger" attraction which allows guests to, "sling webs just like Spider-Man."
There have been conflicting reports about whether Tom Holland will lend his voice to the wall-crawler because while the theme park's version of Spider-Man looks nearly identical to the one in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the costume is ever so slightly different. As a result, we can't say for sure whether this new land is supposed to set in that shared world.
However, the news has broken today that Spidey will battle the villainous Doctor Octopus in the ride, and that's led to speculation that he's going to be
Spider-Man 3's lead villain.
There are arguments for and against this being the case; for starters, if Doc Ock is making a physical appearance in the ride - which, as we mentioned, opens this summer - then he would need to have been cast already. If, on the other hand, he just has a presence, then this could easily tie into the next film. Him being in the ride may also lessen the odds of a
Spider-Man 3 appearance.
What we can quite confidently state is that Avengers Campus sounds awesome, and it should be a must-visit for fans. Do you guys think Doctor Octopus is on his way to the MCU?
To take a look at some amazing concept art from the
original Spider-Man 3, hit the "Next" button below!
Remember in the comics when Venom invades Peter Parker's hme and traumatises Mary Jane? Well, it looks like we were set to get a version of that in
Spider-Man 3 as the villain can be seen watching her from the shadows.
Harry Osborn's death was undeniably emotional and this lovely piece of artwork shows his final moments as he dies in the arms of Peter and MJ while the sun rises in the background.
With MJ caught in Venom's web, the wall-crawler races into action to try and stop Eddie Brock from killing the woman he loves and wreaking havoc on New York City.
The combinatoon of regular webbing and the Symbiote looks undeniably awesome and this did end up making for one of the most thrilling sequences in the entire film as MJ held on for dear life.
The gigantic version of Sandman wasn't anywhere near as cool as Sony probably thought it would be and it's an idea they planned to recycle for that now scrapped
Sinister Six movie.
Setting
Spider-Man 3's final battle on a building site wasn't a bad idea and it led to some inventive action scenes, including Peter putting Venom down with the use of those steel girders.
This artwork places Spider-Man (in his new black suit) in two very different settings and the moment the web-slinger wakes up and tries out his alien costume remains one of the trilogy's best sequences.
In this world, Venom arrived on Earth courtesy of a meteorite, something fans argued made no sense as the symbiote should have been burned up and been destroyed on entry!
As Harry chased down Peter on his, well, "snowboard" seems a more apt description than Goblin Glider, he lays a trap which leads to the villain seemingly losing his memory and returning to his old ways.
This was a thrilling action sequence which saw Spider-Man save Gwen Stacy and ultimately receive the key to New York City (much to the chagrin of MJ, especially after he planted that kiss on her newfound love rival).
Norman Osborn has many hidden weapon stores and Harry took full advantage of that, gaining his father's weapons and making good use of the equipment he left behind after becoming the Green Goblin.
That includes this energy sword and given the way Norman was used throughout this trilogy, it's hard to escape the feeling that the plan was to one day resurrect him just like in the comic books.
Mary Jane had started finding success at this point in her career and this is clearly meant to show her on stage (likely hoping to see Peter in the audience only to realise he's too busy being Spider-Man).
With no Fantastic Four in this world, Peter turned to Dr. Curt Connors for help in understanding the alien symbiote and it's just a shame that we never got to see this version of the character become the Lizard!
This is clearly meant to show some of the battle between Spider-Man and Sandman in the sewers, something you'll no doubt remember was a lot of fun to play in the video game adaptation of this movie.
While Spider-Man thinks that he's defeated Sandman, the villain (who we learned was responsible for the death of Uncle Ben) managed to make his escape through one of the sewer pipes.
With his ill gotten gains in hand, Flint Marko clearly believes that his newfound powers mean he's unstoppable...little did he know that the Spectacular Spider-Man was stalking him the entire time.
Some cool alternate takes on Flint's transformation into the Sandman, it was the right move to take the character down this route...and to not have Spidey defeat him with a vacuum cleaner!
The majority of Spidey's villains have origin stories which are also routed in science and it's easy to imagine Marvel Studios heading down the same route if they ever choose to reintroduce the character.
On the run from the law, Flint Marko ends up getting into some serious trouble when he falls into the experiment above which ends up turning him into the monstrous Sandman.
Sony really dropped the ball with Harry Osborn's costume as "Green Goblin II" in
Spider-Man 3 and it's hard to figure out why he wouldn't just don his father's costume, albeit with some minor cosmetic changes.
A great shot of Spider-Man in his apartment, look closely and you'll notice that the alien symbiote is crawling towards him and about to make Peter Parker its unwitting host.
Peter Parker hanging out with his Aunt May and her elderly friends? Why not! This was clearly a moment which was going to be included in an earlier version of the threequel.
Yes, it does indeed appear as if Peter was once going to tear his shirt off and start dancing around MJ's club, pulling off some classic Spidey poses in the process. And you thought the theatrical version of this sequence was bad...
This looks like another moment which was torn straight from the pages of the comic books as Spidey battles Sandman with the citizens of New York City watching from below.
Harry Osborn's funeral was clearly set to be an emotional, depressing sequence and it's interesting to see that Norman's headstone would have loomed large in the background.
Sandman ended up robbing an armoured truck in the movie but here we see that he would have used his new powers to sneak into a vault and steal the priceless diamonds from within.
Sandman's powers are pretty terrifying when you think about it and these poor security guards are clearly learning that the hard way as he fills up this space with sand and causes them to sink into the depths below.
Another take on one of Norman's old hideouts, it's a shame we didn't get to spend more time here and maybe even get a glimpse at a costume which could have later been donned by the Hobgoblin!
A jealous Peter watches on as Harry grows close with Mary Jane, something which would culminate in a surprisingly violent battle between the two that left Harry badly scarred.
This is presumably a slightly different take on the fight between Spider-Man and Harry but it's interesting that this piece is titled "Death Platform" so perhaps he wasn't meant to find any sort of redemption in the final act?
Spider-Man certainly looks pretty sinister here with his new black suit on and it's easy to see some of the Venom influences creeping into both his posture and size.
As Spider-Man and Mary Jane enjoy some quality time in the park, a certain symbiote would come crashing to Earth. This take on that scene is way more visually impressive than what ended up on screen, though.
Looking to get revenge on Peter for what he did to his father, Harry wielded this impressive looking weapon with the goal of impaling the wall-crawler on the end of it and making things "right."
He may have looked foolish but Harry did have a formidable array of weapons in this movie. Here, we get to see a number of takes on the Pumpkin bombs he carried into battle after setting his sights on killing his former best friend.
As we mentioned at the start of this post, Raimi didn't want Venom in
Spider-Man 3 but a lot of work was put into bringing the iconic, fan-favourite villain to life on the big screen.
Venom looked quite a bit different to the version in the movie that came out in 2018 but it was a design fans still got on board with, even if he wasn't quite as big as he probably should have been.
There's a real element of body horror here as we see what happened to Eddie Brock while the Venom symbiote took hold of him and it's fascinating to see how that went from the concept art stages to real-life.
These sketches of Venom are nothing short of amazing and it's definitely interesting seeing how much closer he could have ended up looking to Spider-Man beyond just the pattern across his alien suit.
Many thanks to Phil Saunders, James Carson, and Kasra Farahani for the artwork featured in this post!