David Fincher Says His SPIDER-MAN Movie Would Include Gwen Stacy's Death

By Trevor Gentry-Birnbaum / December 22, 2011

Way back in January of 2010, before Marc Webb was officially chosen to direct Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man, David Fincher was on the short list of potential candidates to helm the reboot. At the time, Fincher was working on what would be prove to be his biggest commercial and critical success story with The Social Network for the studio and was an easy candidate given his talent, stature in the industry, and apparent liking of the web-slinging character that goes back to the late 90's when he first pitched his take on a big screen Spider-Man movie to Sony. The website io9.com recently scored an interview with Fincher for publicity for his new film The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and although the full piece isn't up yet the site have released an exclusive set of quotes in which Fincher explains what direction he proposed to take Spider-Man, presumably both in the late 90's and for the more recent reboot;

My impression what Spider-Man could be is very different from what Sam did or what Sam wanted to do. I think the reason he directed that movie was because he wanted to do the Marvel comic superhero. I was never interested in the genesis story. I couldn't get past a guy getting bit by a red and blue spider. It was just a problem€ It was not something that I felt I could do straight-faced. I wanted to start with Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin, and I wanted to kill Gwen Stacy. The title sequence of the movie that I was going to do was going to be a ten minute €” basically a music video, an opera, which was going to be the one shot that took you through the entire Peter Parker . Bit by a radio active spider, the death of Uncle Ben, the loss of Mary Jane, and was going to begin with Peter meeting Gwen Stacy. It was a very different thing, it wasn't the teenager story. It was much more of the guy who's settled into being a freak.

Fans know that in the comics, Gwen Stacey was in fact killed by the Green Goblin, so there€™s not much to complain about there, but the talk of the story being about a €œguy who€™s settled into being a freak€ to Sony must have sounded a little strange and it's probably a major reason why his take wasn't chosen. Also, his displeasure with certain elements from the comics, such as the €œgetting bit by a red and blue spider€ sounds like he could have taken the movie in a direction that would be too much of a departure from the comics and previous film series to drive away both casual and hardcore fans. Despite that, we still kind of wish he had at least filmed his epic ten minute opening sequence.