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

7. Early 1980s - Spidey Versus Doc Ock (And Russia)

Doc Ock Spider Man
Marvel Comics

Spider-Man was actually given the movie treatment in the late 1970s, when a trio of films hit cinemas. However, these weren't "proper" movies - they were just episodes of 1977's Amazing Spider-Man TV show. The first "film" was simply the pilot episode of the show, while the sequels were two-parter episodes that had been stitched together.

The show, to put it kindly, has not aged well, but its popularity proved that audiences were hungry for some live-action Spider-Man content. And so, the character's cinematic future started to open up.

In the early 1980s, master of low-budget cheese Roger Corman planned to make his own movie based on the character, with a story treatment penned by the legendary Stan Lee. In many ways, the film would've been a traditional Spider-Man origin tale, with a radioactive spider and Uncle Ben's death turning college student Peter Parker into a crime-fighting vigilante. In addition, Lee's story had Peter vying for the affection of Mary Jane Watson, all the while battling Dr. Otto Octavius and his robotic limbs.

Mirroring real-world fears of the time, there was also a plot point about a looming nuclear war with Russia, which Spidey would ultimately prevent. Like the last entry, it sounds insane, although with Lee writing the script, Spidey's arc throughout the film would've probably been really good.

The project didn't get very far though, and eventually died in 1985 when the Spider-Man movie rights went to Cannon Films.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!