Over on Digital Spy, writer Sam Ashurst wrote up a fascinating article about the Spider-Man movies that almost got off the ground when Cannon Films got their hands on the Marvel property back in the mid-1980s, long before Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and the subsequent MCU movies did proper justice to the iconic, web-slinging comic book character.
One of those unmade projects, as you may have heard over the years, was to be helmed by Texas Chain Saw Massacre director Tobe Hooper, who was at the time working on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Cannon went after Hooper to direct a bizarre take on Spider-Man that “The Outer Limits” creator Leslie Stevens was commissioned to write by the studio.
Ashurst explains in the aforementioned Digital Spy article, “In this new version, 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. This man-spider is encouraged to lead the scientist’s race of mutants (shades of The Island Of Dr Moreau), but refuses and fights the creations instead.”
It would seem that Cannon had completely misunderstood the origin story of Spider-Man, believing the character to be a horrifying man-spider rather than a superhero. Oops!
Cannon’s take on Spider-Man was ultimately rejected by Stan Lee himself, and they went back to the drawing board. What came next? Head over to Digital Spy to read the full piece!
