Anna Daniels
Before Sam Raimi was handed the keys to the Spider-Man film kingdom, Sony had several other directors in mind to bring the wallcrawler to the big screen. By 1999, they had narrowed their options down to four: Michael Bay, Chris Columbus, Barry Sonnenfeld, and David Fincher. They eventually approached Fincher (and did so again when they rebooted the franchise after Raimi), but he pitched himself right out of contention. Fincher himself summed it up nicely, recalling, “I was asked if I might be interested in the first Spider-Man, and I went in and told them what I might be interested in doing, and they hated it.”
Fincher told io9 that he wanted the first ten minutes of the film to essentially be a “music video” showing Spider-Man’s origin, including how he got his powers, the death of his uncle, and losing Mary Jane Watson. From there, Fincher said, “I wanted to start with Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin, and I wanted to kill Gwen Stacy.” He wasn’t interested in telling the origin story beyond that; instead, he wanted to focus more on the psychology of the character and the “idea of a teenager, the notion of this moment in time when you’re so vulnerable yet completely invulnerable.”
Fincher reportedly wanted Edward Norton to play the role — which might seem a bit strange, as Norton was 30 years old, but then again, Tobey Maguire was nearly 30 when he played the part.
Written by: Looper
