Back before X-Men, Spider-Man, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the superhero genre was
a pretty tough nut to crack.
Now Hollywood has mostly gotten it figured out, but it didn't always used to be this
way.
Here are some of the weirder early attempts we could have gotten.
Sam Raimi's Spider-Man series may look a little quaint by today's standards, but when the
first film dropped in 2002, it hit like a minor miracle.
The flick enjoyed the biggest opening weekend ever at the time, validating Raimi's lifelong
dream of bringing a comic book hero to life.
His 1990 cult classic Darkman, with a superheroic character of his own creation, was the result
of the director being rebuffed at every turn in his bid to adapt an existing comic book
property such as the Shadow or Batman.
After that film's relative success, Raimi figured he had some creative capital to spend.
When beloved Marvel mastermind Stan Lee died in late 2018, Raimi shared a story about what
could have been with The Hollywood Reporter.
"After I did Darkman, Stan Lee called me and was like, 'Hey, kid, I liked your movie,'
He took me out to lunch and said we should work together."
Raimi said he told Lee that he'd like to make a movie about Thor, who had previously only
appeared in live-action form in the TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns.
Turns out, the people who owned the film rights to the character weren't ready for another
try just yet.
"No!"
According to Raimi,
"We worked together writing treatments and took it to Fox and pitched it.
And they said, 'Absolutely no.
Comic books don't make good movies.'
This was in 1991."
It would take Raimi another eight years to land the gig of his dreams, and it's safe
to say that he acquitted himself pretty well.
"'Nuff said."
As well-received as Sam Raimi's first two Spider-Man films were, 2007's Spider-Man 3...
wasn't.
Particularly problematic was the plotline of Eddie Brock and the famous Venom symbiote,
which Raimi didn't even want to include in the movie to begin with.
But while the Venom storyline may have felt pretty tacked-on, the movie as a whole does
have its moments.
"How's the pie?"
"So good.”
Topher Grace's take on the Parker-hating Brock was actually pretty good — the problem was
the character of the Venom symbiote itself.
"I like being bad.
It makes me happy."
Despite the negative reception to Venom's live-action debut, Sony still had plans to
develop a spin-off starring Grace's version of the character.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio was inspired to move forward with a more villainous
sort of anti-hero project after the rapturous reception to Heath Ledger's Joker in 2008's
The Dark Knight.
Multiple script drafts were written for the Venom spinoff project, but the whole plan
went out the window when Sony decided to reboot the Spider-Man franchise and start over with
the Amazing Spider-Man series.
Who knows what Grace would have done with a whole movie of his own to work with — especially
since he's since expressed confusion about why he was ever cast for the role in the first
place.
2008's Iron Man was the film that launched the highest-grossing franchise in history,
but Tony Stark's live-action debut could have easily looked a lot different.
By the time Marvel Studios was formed in 2005, it had reacquired the rights to the character.
But those rights had spent years being passed around from Fox to Universal to New Line,
with names attached to the project including Stuart Gordon, Quentin Tarantino, and even
The Iron Giant screenwriter Tim McCanlies, presumably just because of the word "iron".
In 2004, a script from the creators of the Smallville TV series landed in the lap of
David Hayter, whose writing credits include the screenplays of the first two X-Men movies.
Hayter set about reworking the screenplay, with contributions that included making a
villain out of Tony's father Howard Stark.
Hayter's version went so far as to have the character align himself with Justin Hammer
to become none other than...
War Machine.
“Your dad!"
Then-rights holder New Line loved Hayter's version, and set the project up with an unconventional
choice of director: Nick Cassavetes, whose biggest success to that point was the romantic
drama The Notebook.
Cassavetes was formally announced to be helming the flick in 2004, with New Line aiming for
a summer 2006 release.
The studio had reason to be optimistic; they had spun box office gold from a Marvel property
with the Blade franchise, and thanks in part to Hayter's X-Men flicks, superhero movies
had recently become surprisingly viable.
But the project languished in development long enough for Marvel to get Tony Stark's
rights back in 2005 — and the rest is history.
Luke Cage, aka Harlem's own invincible Power Man, wasn't the first black hero in comics,
or even in Marvel lore.
But he immediately earned a high profile by virtue of a colorful costume, a formidable
power set, and an awesome catchphrase.
"Sweet Christmas."
His inspired pairing with superpowered martial artist Iron Fist sold a lot of books in the
'70s, but before Mike Colter put his live-action stamp on the character with a self-titled
Netflix series, only one honest attempt had been made to bring the human wrecking ball
to the screen.
In 2003, Columbia Pictures optioned the character for a film adaptation, hiring scribe Ben Ramsey
to pen a screenplay.
Attached to helm the project was John Singleton, whose incendiary films Boyz n the Hood and
Higher Learning had established him as a talented director capable of crafting masterful black-centric
stories that were accessible to a wide audience.
His dream casting: Tyrese Gibson as Cage and Terrence Howard as the villain Diamondback.
The project eventually withered on the vine, with the rights reverting to Marvel in 2013.
But before they did, an even more interesting name was floated for the title role: Idris
Elba, who told the Huffington Post in 2013 that he had briefly considered taking on the
part.
The Flash is bound to get his big-screen due with a solo movie any day now, but for the
moment, the Scarlet Speedster is mostly enjoying a high profile thanks to his well-received
live-action series in the CW's Arrowverse.
Warner Brothers has been attempting to get some kind of version of a Flash movie off
the blocks since at least 2004.
It was around that time that audiences came close to getting a version written, produced,
and directed by Batman Begins screenwriter David S. Goyer.
At the time, Goyer called the Flash his favorite of all of the DC properties, and shared his
plans to use the Wally West version of the character, instead of Barry Allen.
Goyer said his script was close in tone to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man series, and that
he felt Ryan Reynolds would be perfect for the role.
But the project was cut short by creative differences.
By early 2007, Goyer had departed the project, saying in one interview,
"The studio is heading off in a completely different direction.
I expect you'll hear of some new developments on that front shortly."
The reality is: not so much.
But considering how many writers and directors the Flashpoint movie has gone through over
the years, it's not for lack of trying.
Danny Rand, the immortal Iron Fist, has yet to get his shot at a big screen adaptation
— and his ill-fated small screen outing, which limped through two very poorly-received
seasons on Netflix, probably never should have happened.
"I'm the Immortal Iron Fist."
"Come again?"
"Sworn protector of K'un Lun?"
"What are you on, lithium?”
But in 2000, Artisan Entertainment, which at the time held the rights to a number of
Marvel characters, was dead-set on producing a feature vehicle for the relatively little-known
character, and the project made a surprising amount of headway before biting the dust.
Writer John Turman, who would go on to pen Ang Lee's Hulk, as well as an unproduced screenplay
based on the Silver Surfer, was hired to write the script, and Artisan even got far enough
into development to cast their lead.
Scottish martial artist Ray Park officially signed on to portray Rand in late 2000, and
principal photography was slated to begin early the following year.
If you don't know him by name, you've still definitely seen his face, at least underneath
a lot of scary makeup.
The actor displayed a formidable screen presence in the role of Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode
I: The Phantom Menace, and also made waves in X-Men as the flexible and grotesque Toad.
But though Park was still talking about the project as late as 2004, it simply failed
to materialize.
The rights eventually reverted back to Marvel Studios, which briefly kicked around the idea
of an Iron Fist feature in 2010 before the fateful decision was made to go the serial
route instead.
"Who is your master?"
"I serve only myself."
"Prepare to disappoint your master."
2018's Black Panther was the highest-grossing film of that year and a bona fide cultural
phenomenon.
Few people predicted the movie's incredible success — except perhaps Wesley Snipes,
who had envisioned exactly that scenario over 25 years before.
In 1992, the red-hot star was dead-set on making Black Panther his next starring vehicle.
In a 2018 conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Snipes said,
"Black Panther spoke to me because he was noble, and he was the antithesis of the stereotypes
presented and portrayed about Africans, African history and the great kingdoms of Africa.
It had cultural significance, social significance.
It was something that the black community and the white community hadn't seen before."
Snipes tried in vain to find the right pairing of writer and director for the project — a
task made even more difficult by the fact that virtually nobody understood the character.
An ill-fated meeting with director John Singleton illustrated that in hilarious fashion, as
Snipes explained to THR.
"John was like, 'Nah!
Hah!
See, he’s got the spirit of the Black Panther, but he is trying to get his son to join the
[Black Panther] organization.
And he and his son have a problem, and they have some strife because he is trying to be
politically correct and his son wants to be a knucklehead.'"
"He's not a Wakandan."
On top of people not understanding the then-obscure superhero, CGI limitations of the time were
also a factor, as the star was intent on rendering Wakanda in much the same way as Ryan Coogler
eventually did.
The project lost steam, but Snipes learned from the failure.
Instead, he moved onto a different Marvel Comics project: Blade.
As Snipes recalled,
"I thought, hey, we can't do the King of Wakanda and the Vibranium and the hidden kingdom in
Africa, let's do a black vampire."
That groundbreaking project came together wonderfully in 1998, and became one of Snipes'
signature roles.
"Some motherf---ers are always trying to ice skate uphill."
Many attempts were made to bring the X-Men to the big screen before the 2000 adaptation.
Perhaps the closest anyone came to actually getting it done was in 1990, when Stan Lee
and Marvel writer Chris Claremont pitched an X-Men feature to James Cameron and his
then-wife, director Kathryn Bigelow.
Cameron agreed to produce the flick, with Bigelow set to direct, and a screenplay was
commissioned from Gary Goldman, the writer behind Big Trouble in Little China and Total
Recall.
That script, titled Wolverine and the X-Men, would have seen Wolverine recruiting Kitty
Pryde for Charles Xavier's team.
The story revolved around the group coming into conflict with a presidential candidate
named Thomas Prince who, oddly enough, had the powers of Magneto.
Probably a coincidence.
"Well, it's complicated."
Cameron's choice for the part of Wolverine was actually pretty inspired: Bob Hoskins.
While Hoskins is far from the huge, jacked man who eventually would come to define the
role on screen, it could easily be argued that the stocky Who Framed Roger Rabbit star
had a more comics-accurate look.
According to Claremont, the project went nowhere largely because Cameron was more interested
in another Marvel property: Spider-Man, for which he had a very detailed, and deeply strange
script.
Of course, the director's Marvel dreams went unfulfilled, but things still ended up working
out for him just fine.
As hard as it is to believe, famous schlockmeisters Cannon Films briefly acquired the rights to
Spider-Man in the '80s, when Don Kopaloff — Marvel's film agent at the time — literally
couldn't get any other studios to bite.
Cannon had big plans for their movie, eyeing Tom Cruise for the title role, Bob Hoskins
for the part of Doctor Octopus, and Texas Chain Saw Massacre filmmaker Tobe Hooper for
the director's chair.
When Hooper passed, they tapped Joseph Zito, whose most successful previous credit had
been Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter — which is actually one of the better Friday the 13th
movies, though nowhere near the final one.
Eventually, they cast stuntman Scott Leva in the title role, and produced a teaser that
was little more than a proof-of-concept reel.
Nowhere near able to actually make the movie yet, the studio hoped to use the teaser as
an investor magnet to acquire funds to make the actual film.
When investors failed to kick down the door, producers slashed the film's budget in half,
prompting Zito to depart.
The subsequent failure of Cannon's notoriously cheap-looking Superman IV: The Quest for Peace,
as well as the expense of producing the He-Man movie Masters of the Universe, ended up sinking
the company.
Cannon's Spider-Man slipped into limbo — perhaps the biggest bullet the wall-crawler ever dodged.
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