A Retrospective on Spider-Man in Film

In August of 1962, Spider-Man made his debut in Amazing Fantasy #15. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and published by Marvel Comics, Peter Parker is a teenage orphan who was bitten by a radioactive spider. He was given superhuman powers that he decided to use to fight crime after learning a lesson on responsibility from his late Uncle Ben. But you already knew all this. In the years following his first appearance, Spider-Man has become one of the most recognizable superheroes to ever be created. His name, appearance, and backstory are so ubiquitous that people who have never even touched a comic book can tell you about them. This is because, in addition to innumerable comic book appearances, he is quite prolific in multiple artistic mediums. He has appearances in a number of video games, television shows, cartoons, and, what I’ll be discussing in this article, movies. With Spider-Man: Far From Home set to release on July 5th, now is a good time to reflect on the history of Spider-Man films. Spider-Man has appeared in more movies that almost any superhero and has been a consistent fixture in cinema since the early 2000s, but his first film appearance was long before that. So strap in, it’s gonna be a long ride!

The early days of Spider-Man movies are strange. In 1969, 25 year old aspiring filmmaker Donald F. Glut released an unauthorized 12 minute Spider-Man fan film that marked his first live action appearance. It features sub-PartyCity level costumes, stop motion that looks like an action figure having a seizure, someone getting shot and acting like they stubbed their toe, the best/worst slap fight you will ever see, and Spider-Man reacting to someone dying with “tough luck”. It’s pretty bad, but it’s also charming and hilarious. It was clearly made with no budget and a lot of passion in a time when fan films weren’t a thing. It’s a fun, quick watch that you can find on YouTube, so I recommend you watch it if you have a little time to kill.

The first official live action appearance of the webhead in a feature length movie took the form of a backdoor pilot for “The Amazing Spider-Man” TV show. Released in 1977 and simply called “Spider-Man” this movie is classic shlock, there isn’t much to be said about it. It has a very low production value, primitive and ugly effects, and is overall pretty clunky and, for lack of a better term, stupid. They also apparently couldn’t afford any spidey-villains because instead we get the very forgettable Guru who’s is basically just a guy in a suit with psychic powers. It does have an alright performance by Nicholas Hammond as Peter Parker and a couple impressive stunts by Fred Waugh, like climbing buildings and actually swinging from one building to another on cable. It was followed by “Spider-Man Strikes Back” in 1978 and “Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge” in 1981 which were both just two episode stories from the show edited together that have the same tone and flaws as the first film. These movies are kind of fun, but they are also very awkward. It’s understandable why the show only had 13 episodes before it was cancelled.

After the television series ended there was really no desire for superhero movies. Superman 3 flopped hard in 1983 and that told the studios that there was no market for costumed crime fighters in Hollywood. The Spider-Man film license was passed from person to person, including at one point having a script written James Cameron in which Arnold Schwarzenegger was planned to play Doctor Octopus. Despite multiple movies being proposed, the property remained dormant for two decades. It wasn’t until 1999 that Columbia Pictures gave up the rights to make a new James Bond series in exchange for MGM giving them Spider-Man.

In 2002, Spider-Man directed by Sam Raimi was released. It was the first big budget Spider-Man movie and breathed new life into both Spider-Man and superhero movies as a whole. It told the story Spidey’s origin and his battles with Green Goblin. It featured stellar performances from its whole cast. Most notably Tobey Maguire’s now iconic portrayal of Peter Parker. It was incredibly successful and only two years later Spider-Man 2 was released. Focusing mostly on Spider-Man’s fight against Dr. Octopus, this sequel was fantastically entertaining and somehow managed to improve on most aspects the first film. These two movies were a heaping helping of fun, excitement, heart, and charm that managed to capture the praise of critics, comic fans, and the average movie goer. They felt like what a Spider-Man movie should feel like, and finally did cinematic justice to the wall crawler.

It seemed as though Sam Raimi could do no wrong and his Spider-Man franchises would continue long into the future. That is until 2007 when Spider-Man 3 was released. It focused on fan favorite villains like Green Goblin, Sandman, and Venom, but managed to disappoint just about every Spider-Man fan out there. It was bloated, poorly structured, and managed to lose much of the fun and heart of the first two installments. Sandman is the best part of the movie, but on the other hand Topher Grace’s Venom is goofy and unfaithful to how the character was conceived as being. The biggest flaw, of course, their attempt to explore Peter’s dark side, resulting in him going emo, doing finger guns to random people as he struts down the sidewalk, and most sinister of all, evil dancing. Despite the less than warm reception, the third movie still made a lot of money, but Sam Raimi was "very unhappy" with how it turned out. In 2010 he dropped out of working on the next movie and Spider-Man 4 was canceled.

It was rebooted in 2012 with the Mark Webb directed film The Amazing Spider-Man. It retells the origin story and pits our hero, now played by Andrew Garfield, against the Lizard. It was exciting and felt darker than Sam Raimi’s films, but it was also completely unnecessary. This movie’s story had been told better only a decade earlier. Its sequel from 2014 fared even worse critically. It tried to pack in too many characters and included plot lines that it turned the whole movie into a long, unfocused mess. From Electro to Green Goblin to a shorter than expected appearance by Rhino, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 seemed to be setting up a bunch of sequels that never came. Because of the mixed reception the two planned sequels were canceled. Neither of Webb’s films are bad, but they just didn’t capture the spirit of the characters, or the attention of the viewers, as well as Raimi’s first two movies.

In 2015 it was announced that Sony and Disney/Marvel Studios had come to an agreement to share the rights to Spider-Man and the franchise was yet again rebooted. Tom Holland was chosen as the new Peter Parker, who made his first appearance in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War and had his first solo film Spider-Man: Homecoming only a year later. They made the wise decision to skip over the frequently retold origin story and introduced Peter as the quipping, web-slinging superhero that we all know and love. Better than any previous actor, Holland managed to capture the youthful aspect of Spidey, actually managing to seem like a high school student, rather than an adult who got held back for seven years. His solo movie was a fun adventure that pitted him against Michael Keaton’s Vulture. With a charming, lovable, Spider-Man, fantastic performances from its whole cast, and a story that never got dragged down by setting up other films, Homecoming is a great film that managed to stand out in the quickly homogenizing MCU.

The most recent Spider-Man movie is unlike any other, and there is a lot to be said about it. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an animated film from 2018 that follows Miles Morales from the Ultimate Marvel comics. It is the highest rated and, in my personal opinion, best Spider-Man film to date. It has a wonderfully stylized and unique animation style that manages to look more like a moving comic book than anything before it. It is pure fun that captures the feel of reading a Spider-Man comic and is accessible to everyone, while inserting enough details to delight die hard Spider-Man fans like myself. These details include large creative choices like the near constant use of Ben Day dots and hatching lines, which were techniques used for shading by early comic book artists. There are also little references throughout the entire movie, from the Comics Code Authority seal in the intro to the post credit nod to the 1967 animated Spider-Man show. By utilizing the Marvel multiverse the film brings together obscure spider men, women, and pigs to create a funny, sincere, and groundbreaking superhero movie who’s praises I cannot sing enough.

When Spider-Man was created in the 60s there were no teenage superheroes, only sidekicks. He revolutionized comics by giving teenagers a hero they could relate to and be inspired by, and he will continue to do so long into the future. Spider-Man's creators, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, both passed away in 2018. Not only has the creation outlived the creators, but it has continually changed and evolved, which is a testament to how timeless the character truly is. Two men may have initially created Spider-Man, but Spider-Man as we know him is really the culmination of numerous people's creativity. As Stan Lee himself put it, "The pleasure of reading a story and wondering what will come next for the hero is a pleasure that has lasted for centuries and, I think, will always be with us.” As long as we want to know what comes next for our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, people will tell new stories. Through highs and lows it's been different people with different perspectives telling different stories through different mediums about the same character. A character that has and will light up people's lives through comics, television, and, of course, film.