Crazy to believe but we are approaching the 20th anniversary of 2002’s Spider-Man on May 3, 2022. While Blade and X-Men were successful, Spider-Man took the success of comic book movies to a whole new level, becoming the first movie to open over $100 million on its opening weekend. The film went on to be a massive hit, grossing $407 million at the domestic box office and $825 million worldwide. Fans really dug the movie but one aspect of the film left some of them scratching their heads and that was Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) organic web-shooters. Having had 20 years to reflect, director Sam Raimi is now looking back at some of the fan backlash.
In a 20th anniversary piece featured in Variety, Sam Raimi and writer David Koepp talked about the negative response to Tobey Maguire’s version of Spider-Man having organic web-shooters. Raimi firmly admits that this was a decision that wasn’t really appreciated or celebrated:
“I was aware of it, and it wasn’t a good thing for me. I didn’t have a great experience of the fans. I don’t think that the fans thought I was the right person to direct Spider-Man in general. And then the organic web shooters – when the fans found out I was going that way, they tried to have me removed from the picture.”
David Koepp also threw in his two cents on the matter and he said that the internet around that time was becoming a place where just about anyone could voice their opinion. Koepp said, “There was an internet culture that was just starting to flex its ability to be ugly. That was probably my first experience with what we’ve come to deal with all the time now, which is the distraction of people telling you what they think your movie should be before, during and after you’re making it, and doing it very publicly. I stand by the organic web slingers as a pretty cool idea. Wasn’t even my idea.”
Koepp is right about the organic web-shooters not being his idea. Before Sam Raimi came on board to direct the film, James Cameron was the top choice to take on the project. His vision of the movie focused a tad too much on adolescent sexuality for Sony’s liking because they wanted it to be a superhero movie that was suitable for all ages. The one idea that was held over from Cameron was the organic web-shooters and Koepp further explained that it was one of the metaphors that led Sony to seek out another director:
“[Cameron] pushed the metaphor of adolescent sexual development really far. There’s a great moment where Peter wakes up in bed with web strands all over himself. It was like, wow, I don’t know if we can do the wet dream thing, but that was pretty funny.”
The organic web-shooters were touched upon in Spider-Man: No Way Home when the three Peters (Maguire, Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield) compared their differences. It was actually a pretty hilarious comedic moment so if including them led us to that, I’m all for it.
What were YOUR thoughts on the decision for Spider-Man to have organic web-shooters?