David Fincher was about to direct a SPIDER-MAN movie and here’s what we know

After Sam Raimi’S spider man 4 the film was canceled by Sony Pictures, the studio began meeting with directors to reboot the franchise. One of the filmmakers they brought in to develop a reboot was David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) and I have no doubt it would have produced an incredible result Spiderman movie! He was also being considered for directorial work along with Christopher Columbus AND Michael Baybefore Sam Raimi got the gig.

The story he wanted to tell would basically skip the origin story of Peter Parker turning into Spider-Man, and focus on the story involving the death of Gwen Stacy. She was trying to tell the origin story in a titled ten-minute one-shot sequence that would take the audience through Peter Parker’s entire backstory.

Fincher previously spoke about the Marvel movie version of Spider-Man he wanted to make, saying:

“My impression of what Spider-Man could be is very different from what Sam could be [Raimi] done or what Sam wanted to do. I think the reason he directed that movie was because he wanted to be a Marvel comic book superhero. I’ve never been interested in the story of genesis. I couldn’t get past a guy getting bitten by a red and blue spider. It was just a problem… It wasn’t something I felt like I could do with a straight face. I wanted to start with Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin, and I wanted to kill Gwen Stacy.

“The title sequence of the movie I was going to do was going to be ten minutes – basically a music video, an opera, that was going to be the one shot that was going to take you through the whole Peter Parker [backstory]. Bitten by a radioactive spider, the death of Uncle Ben, the loss of Mary Jane and [then the movie] it would start with Peter meeting Gwen Stacy. It was a very different thing, it wasn’t the story of the teenager. He was much more than the boy who decided to become a monster.

As a fan of Fincher’s films, of course, I’m curious as to how this film would have turned out. I’m happy Raimi’s Spider-Man movies exist, but I would have loved to see Fincher’s reboot, but with the same cast of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. I wonder if they would have still been cast under Fincher, or if he would have cast completely different actors.

Fincher never took on the project because the studio wanted a fresh start with an origin story, and Fincher wasn’t interested in that at all.

This is just one of those big movie projects that would have been interesting to see happen. What are your thoughts on Fincher’s missed opportunity to direct a Spider-Man movie?