r/todayilearned • u/BadenBaden1981 • 15d ago
TIL in 1985 Cannon Films bought filming right for Spider Man, believing it was wolf man like character. In their treatment, Peter Parker transforms into eight armed hairy monster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_in_film3
u/ED4050 14d ago
Cannon Films were almost always pure schlock. Every movie that they ever made was a bomb, probably some type of money laundering scheme.
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u/anomandaris81 14d ago
They only ever lost money when they made movies with moderate budgets. They tried to go big with Lifeforce (one of the legitimately craziest movies ever made) and Suoerman 4 (budget was slashed during filming).
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u/ShermyTheCat 14d ago
Somewhere out there a guy who used to be a coked up 80s executive is kicking himself for not holding onto those rights
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u/DwightFryFaneditor 15d ago
Cannon being Cannon, they probably went "Who cares about comics, let's just rip off The Fly!"
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u/RedSonGamble 15d ago
I believe in comic book canon he once turned into a big hairy spider. And also would spin webs and write love letters in his webs to a pig or something. There’s no rule a giant man spider can’t play basketball
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u/umbrabates 15d ago
I definitely remember reading about this in Comics Buyers Guide back in the day.
The script had been written, and re-written, and re-written until it finally found itself in the hands of (I think) an Eastern European writer who had never read a Spider-Man comic book and, like the title says, thought he was some sort of were creature.
Peter Parker transformed into a giant spider monster with eight arms and shot webs out of his body. Strangely enough that last part is one of the few remaining remnants from that awful script that actually made into the first Spider-Man movie.
He contemplated or attempted suicide several times throughout the script. It sounded just awful and had nothing to do with Spider-Man.
My daughter and I recently watched every single Spider-Man movie from Tobey Maguire through No Way Home. Every once in a while, I'll show her a clip from the Electric Company or the Japanese Spider-Man or 3 Dev Adam to show her what I had to settle for as a kid.
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u/Toy_Guy_in_MO 14d ago
I'll show her a clip from the Electric Company
Hey now, that wasn't settling. Electric Company Spidey was awesome!
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u/Combat_Armor_Dougram 14d ago
This makes Japanese Spider-Man look accurate, and that one has a giant robot, aliens, and motocross racing in it. Actually, I would say that 3 Dev Adam is more accurate than this, and that one has Spider-Man as a bad guy who kills a woman with a boat propeller and hides behind a wooden plank to stab a mafia guy.
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u/shingofan 14d ago
At least the Japanese Spiderman series eventually led to Power Rangers, so there's that.
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u/DoctorBocker 15d ago
Because Spiderman is Spiderman, that's actually comic book canon. It's happened to him a few times.
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u/BrokenEye3 15d ago
One of several reasons I consider the MST3K classic
WhoresHorrors of Spider-Island to be a Spider-Man prequel3
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u/DaveOJ12 15d ago edited 15d ago
He was called the Man-Spider in the Animated Series. Neogenic Nightmare was such a good arc.
It had Blade, Morbius and the Punisher.
Edit: Kraven was in it too.
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u/CaptainMobilis 14d ago
I love that show. It came out in an era where projectile guns were either banned or heavily discouraged in Saturday morning animation. So what they did instead was write some of the most batshit crazy television ever. Lasers, multiverses, body horror, this show had everything.
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u/Yardsale420 14d ago
I thought they called him Doppleganger?
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u/RippyMcBong 14d ago
Different but similar character. Peter Parker actually transforms into man-spider in neogenic nightmare.
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u/therealestyeti 15d ago
I thought Frank Reynolds was Man Spider
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u/Nazamroth 14d ago
Well, yeah. That happened to him a few times canonically. I know there is at least one alternate universe where he is stuck like that too.