Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse almost featured Tom Cruise, James Cameron

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

The now Oscar-winning SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is full of references to the universe of Spider-Man, from exploring characters from various publications, taking dings at past movies and even featuring an image of a very sad and real popsicle. For as many trivia bits and Easter eggs as there were in the film, there were just as many that were cut or scrapped at conception, including a reference to past Spider-Men Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and the MCU’s Tom Holland. Perhaps the most interesting potential Easter egg involved none other than Tom Cruise and Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron, and SPIDER-VERSE directors Rodney Rothman and Peter Ramsey opened up about the awesome, albeit confusing way they would’ve worked into the movie.

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The duo was speaking to /Film about the movie, which is now out on digital and set for physical home release on March 19. Part of the special features is an Alternate Universe mode, which is an extended version of the movie that includes cut storylines, other characters and deleted scenes. The Cruise/Cameron bit is not included in the cut, but the directors spoke about how one version had Miles Morales learning how to be Spider-Man not from reading comic books, but by watching Spider-Man movies. Morales would have been watching one of these movies, which would’ve been a reference to the Spider-Man movie Cameron almost made in the 90s and the Cannon Films movie Cruise almost starred in in the late 80s before the project was scrapped.

Rothman: There’s a lot of stuff that we took out of the movie for good reasons, but that give you a window into the creative process behind the years that were spent on the movie. So an example of stuff they are talking about… There’s a line from Doc Ock that’s a very direct reference to Doc Ock’s most famous line in Spider-Man 2. Is the Tom Cruise stuff in the alternate universe version? So there was a whole period of time where Miles, rather than learning about being Spider-man from a comic book, learned it from watching the films. There was a movie version of a movie about Spider-Man in Miles’ universe about the real person Spider-Man, but it was a James Cameron-directed movie with Tom Cruise as Spidey. Yes. Spidey. And it was James Cameron and Spidey and Tom Cruise on the audio.

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So, the scene would’ve had Morales watching the movie with a commentary playing featuring Cameron, Cruise, and the real Spider-Man (voiced by Chris Pine) talking about the movie. However, Rothman admitted it was cut for a very obvious reason, which was the concept itself was difficult to incorporate into the story and would probably be too confusing for audiences to grasp. Also, not many people know about the history Cameron and Cruise have with Spidey, so that would be a reference that would go way over their head, thus sort of diminishing the humor of the whole scene.  Still, that would’ve been a perfect little reference for the more die-hard fans, and how awesome would it be to have Cameron, Cruise and Pine’s Spider-Man talking about shooting a Spider-Man movie. Oh well, I guess the movie is alright without it, I guess.

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is on digital now and on Blu-ray and DVD March 19.