True Story Of The 8 Best Spider-Man Movies Never Made

8. Late 1970s - The Night Gwen Stacy Died

The Spider-Man movie franchise is currently one of the most popular on the planet, so it's quite bizarre to learn that the character's cinematic life almost began with a fantasy-musical, an idea that was shopped around by filmmaker Steve Krantz.

Krantz had been a producer on the iconic 1967 animated Spider-Man series, and throughout the early 1970s, he spent a period of time trying to get a Spider-Man musical off the ground. In 1975, Krantz even wrote a letter to Stan Lee about this idea, mentioning names like Elton John and Mick Jagger as potential stars. Imagine that.

Fortunately though, this pitch never took off, and in 1976, Krantz reworked his Spider-Man film into something a bit more conventional. His new idea for a movie drew from comic-book storyline The Night Gwen Stacy Died, but Krantz also wanted to include a 100-foot robot... and some Nazis!

Maybe "conventional" is the wrong word.

It sounds deliriously enjoyable and crazy - in a good way - but in the end, Krantz was forced to admit defeat when he couldn't get enough momentum behind the project.