12 Directors You Didn't Know Almost Made Comic Book Movies

12. David Fincher - Spider-Man & The Amazing Spider-Man

Shortly after David Fincher's Fight Club hit screens in late 1999, word emerged that the director had somewhat incredulously landed on the shortlist to direct the upcoming Spider-Man movie, which of course eventually went to Sam Raimi.

Fincher confirmed that he took a meeting about the movie and had a very different pitch for it. He said, "I was never interested in the genesis story. I couldn't get past a guy getting bit by a red and blue spider...The title sequence of the movie that I was going to do was going to be a ten minute...music video, an opera, which was going to be the one shot that took you through the entire Peter Parker [backstory]. Bit by a radio active spider, the death of Uncle Ben, the loss of Mary Jane, and [the movie] was going to begin with Peter meeting Gwen Stacy...It was much more of the guy who's settled into being a freak."

Naturally, the studio hated it and they went with Raimi's more conventional, family-friendly telling. Curiously, though, Fincher once again made the shortlist for 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man reboot, but again, they opted for an easier-to-wrangle filmmaker in young up-and-comer Marc Webb.

Could It Have Worked?: Looking at Fincher's filmography, he's made just one family-friendly, CGI-infused film to date (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and it's probably one of his most anonymous movies, so it's hard to imagine Fincher getting much satisfaction out of going there again. The evidence points to "no".