8 Spider-Man Movies That Almost Happened

8. James Cameron's Spider-Man

The cinematic rights to Spider-Man were passed from pillar to post throughout the 1980s, and by the early '90s, they were under the ownership of Carolco Pictures.

It was during these wilderness years that Terminator director James Cameron had a stab at a Spidey screenplay, and it was madder than a box of radioactive arachnids.

Cameron envisaged an adults-only Spider-Man haunted by Kafka-esque nightmares, who has a penchant for swearing and getting jiggy on New York landmarks.

Yup, in this particular screenplay your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man curses like a trooper and has sex with Mary Jane Watson on Brooklyn Bridge. Marvel Comics would have been fine with all of that, right?

The script was a revised version of an earlier screenplay and featured all-new takes on Sandman and Electro as its villains, and a climactic battle atop of the World Trade Centre, during which Spidey reveals his secret identity to Mary Jane.

Whether Cameron's vision would have reached the big screen intact is debatable, but financial problems coupled with a messy and complex legal dispute forced Carolco to abandon its Spider-Man ambitions in 1992.