Well, the September the 11th attacks weren't strictly the only reason that James Cameron's Spider-Man didn't get made. When Carolco Pictures were developing the projects the independent company were on a high, thanks to the Terminator and Rambo films. Their mid-nineties fall, thanks to box office bombs Cutthroat Island and Showgirls, came later. Cameron delivered his script, which also bore the names of the half-dozen writers who had worked on it before, and it looked like a shoo-in to get made. He was the guy behind the Terminator movies, Aliens, and True Lies, after all. What eventually killed the film dead wasn't anything particularly scandalous or exciting or glamorous. In fact, it was the most boring reason anything happens the way it does in Hollywood: red tape. When Cameron agreed to work on the film, the contract drawn up was based on the one for Terminator 2, which meant it left off a few other people who were legally involved with the scriptment he produced. The threat of litigation by other writers and producers were enough to scare Carolco from moving forward, the rights issue got confusing, and then Columbia Pictures finally snatched away audience's chance to see gross Peter-MJ spider boning.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
