10 Deleted Sci-Fi Movie Scenes You Need To See

Let’s admit it—fun as it is, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 is a bit of a mess. Yes, the film has its defenders and in the wake of a million and one MCU instalments, it’s easier to defend the era where superhero movies had a more distinctively cartoony tone. But the film is overstuffed and overlong, with a central trio of villains vying for attention when one would have more than sufficed.

So, adding further scenes seems unlikely to help this issue, but as Tom Hardy and the creators of Zombieland proved, Venom can excel when given time to shine in a film of his own, and the same may have been true for the rest of Spider-Man 3’s trio of baddies.

Take Thomas Haden Church’s under-utilized Sandman—ever wonder why they cast the dramatic heavyweight in such a minor role?

Well, it’s because deleted scenes reveal his tragic backstory searching for a cure to his daughter’s illness, as well as his teaming up with Eddie taking place in a park where he’s playing with her for extra poignancy points.

As it stands, the three-villain pile up makes the film's ending a mess, and their conflicting motivations never unite effectively against Peter. With this extra context both Sandman and Venom become more fallible, human villains, when viewed as victims of desperate circumstances and arrogant hubris respectively, and their team up becomes formidable rather than laughable.