Spider-Man: The Movie
For Cannon films the production appears to have been a web too far.
By Sheldon Teitelbaum
Cannon Films’ production of SPIDER- MAN—THE MOVIE is now on indefinite hold, reportedly because a Cannon official— perhaps a bureaucratin the company’s accounts payable department forgot to mail-in a payment to Marvel Comics for the rights to the character. New World Pictures, which owns Marvel and the film rights to its line of superheroes appears to have jumped at the opportunity presented by this unfortunate gaffe. Cannon, upon discovering what it would maintain was a mere oversight—one easily rectified—-dashed off a meager check for the outstanding amount. But New World rejected the overture.
All this amid talk that Christopher Columbus is warming-up in the writer’s bullpen at New World waiting for word from the studio to move ona web-crawlingepic of its own. Officials at Cannon, Marvel, and New World Pictures declined to return our calls to solicit their comment on the situation.
Cannon bought the rights to Spider-Man from Marvelabout three years ago, before New World Pictures purchased the comic book company andafter Roger Corman let his option on the character lapse. Corman, now involved almost exclusively with low-budget films, probably realized that doing SPIDER-MAN properly would cost more than he was prepared to spend. Cannon’s story department had trouble getting a handle on the character from the beginning. According to Joseph Zito, who was slated to direct the film, the story department had, prior to his involvement in the project, contemplated making Spider- Man a real spider, one of several outrageous ideas actually expressed on paper.
Above and top right, actor Scott Leva as Spiderman and his alias Peter Parker. Leva, who made personal appearances a8 Spiderman tor Marvel Comics, was up for the flim role.
The idea of investing in a reprint of the first Spider-Man comic book by Stan Lee never occurred to anyone. An early treatment by OUTER LIM- ITS co-creator Leslie Stevens substituted a new origin for the superhero involving an evil scientist named Dr. Zork, a maker of mutants who pits his monstrous creations against Spidey. In this case, Peter Parker, aka the web-spinner, was a lowly Zork employee who became a spider-man because of an experimental mishap. Somuch for the original Spider- Man canon.
Meanwhile, Spider- Man's mentor, Marvel’s own Stan Lee, had produced a treatment of his own, one that he describes as “pure, quintessential Spider-Man. The plot was simple and linear,” said Lee. “There waslots of room for good characterization and subplots—all the fun we used to have in the comic books themselves.”
At the advice of Don Kopaloff, Marvel's agent, Lee gave his treatment to two young writers, Ted Newsom and John Brancato. They came back with a script that Lee said was a promising first draft. Newsom and Brancato had written their script with Tobe Hooper in mind as the film's director—Cannon had announced Hooper as director in trade ads, part of the director's now inglorious three-picture contract with Cannon that eventually included LIFE- FORCE, INVADERS FROM MARS, and TEXAS CHAIN- SAW MASSACRE II. When Joe Zito got the job, the writers just took out all the in-jokes,
Zito burned to do SPIDER- MAN, which he termed “the most magical project.” The director had made two of Cannon’s biggest moncy-makers, MISSING IN ACTION and INVASION U.S.A. Zito knew Cannon was planning the picture because he read about it in the trades. But he didn't know that Hooper had opted not to do the project and that a vacancy had opened-up.
Zito trapped Cannon chief Menachem Golan in an clevator one day and expressed his interest in directing SPIDER- MAN—THE MOVIE. Within 48 hours they were talking a deal and Zito had been shown the script, the Newsom/ Brancato draft. Zito said he was more or less pleased with it, But he found himself unable to work with Brancato, who reportedly behaved imperiously and was intent upon revising the script with as little input from the director as possible. Although Zito maintained a friendly dialogue with Newsom, he brought in his own writer, Barney Cohen.
Cohen's screenplays, according to Stan Lee, were less than pleasing. The version Cohen first handed in, he said, was not as good as the original. “And the next version, | liked even less,” said Lee. “The scripts kept getting worse and worse. And finally | gota call 'inever forget. It was from Menachem Golan, who was in Europe. He said | shouldn't worry because he was going to rewrite the script on the plane heading back to California.” Golan runs Cannon with partner Yoram Globus.
Actually, both Lee and Zito think Golan did a decent job of it. He didn't adhere to the canon— Spidey never got much play in Golan’s native Tiberius, a city on the shore of Galilee in Israel, where the fearsome Sabraman, an Israeli comic book character, had the field pretty much to himself, But had Golan pitched his ideas to the Marvel crew back when the Spider-Man story was first being thrashed out, they might have been incorporated. Zito said they were “sound and wise.” They just werent Spidey.
Zito saw his own role as that of balancing the company’s sense of the story with his own sense of Spider-Man. Zito had not grown up a Spidey fan, having thrown in with D.C. comics and Superman at an early age. But a reading of the strips asanadult won him over.
“| had made tough guy movies. But here was a hero who was a real guy, like you or me,” said Zito. “Spider-Man had to face the very real problems we face in the real world, He wasn't just another tough guy from some other planet who has no conflict in this world. This was not a guy who had no problem distinguishing from rightand wrong. Here’sa guy, rather, who was always torn between having to go off and save the worldand beingat Aunt May’s on time fordinner. That touches us ina real way. It taps into our fantasies but grounds us in our realities.” Zito had big plans for Spider-Man. The director had distinguished himself by adapting potentially weighty stories intentionally into action-packed comic books. Here was a chance to take a comic book and work some genuine art into it. To make a film that, he hoped, would prove enduring. And Zito managed to impart his enthusiasm for the project to Cannon. Zito had budgeted the film at $18 million, and the company had informally announced its approval of a $15 million budget to start.
Spiderman creator and head of Marvel Productions, Stan Lee, squares off with his comic book creation. Lee was up for the role of J. Jonah Jameson, Spidey's boss.
“At one point,” he said, “there was a huge sense of urgency about this project. Suddenly, it had to be made yesterday.” Butevenas preproduction hammered ahead, Zito continued to experience conflict with the story department which, he said, insisted that the film’s focus alternate between Spider-Man and his chief villain, Dr. Octopus.
“Now Doc Oc wasa wonderful villain, but this was getting away from what I thought the film was all about,” said Zito. “| wanted to know what was happening, dramatically, inside of Spider-Man, His physical interaction with Dr, Octopus, was, for me, the least interesting aspect of the picture.”
Zito said that eventually he received a script that he felt was “spectacular.” He was free to design the film, At Golan’s behest, Zito spent a month in Italy checking out the studios. Golan also suggested filming Spider-Man in his native Israel but Zito demurred. He wanted to do the movie in England. “I wanted the English set designers,” he said. “I liked the quasisurrealistic look they could give to the world I wanted to create for Spider-Man. It would have been a mistake to set Spidey, in his red and blue outfit, onto a brightly-lit street in Santa Monica. I wanted his world to look slightly askew—sort of with a quarter of a foot into the door of BRAZIL. I agreed with Stan Lee that Spider-Man’s world had to be very real, but I also thought there had to be a sense that this was not a completely literal environment.”
Zito hired four storyboard artists to help him design the film. Chief among them was Mentor Huebner whose credits included DUNE and FORBIDDEN PLANET. “He’s wonderful,” said Zito. “An old-school pro and a real artist. His boards were inspiring to everyone. I could show them to anyone and they would understand the movie.”
Zito also hired Nikita Knatz who had actually drawn Spider-Man for Marvel. Knatz knew how Spider-Man moved and had a sense of delivering a composition that, while referencing comic books, did not become engulfed by their conventions. Preproduction, which kept Zito busy for the better part of last year also involved extensive special effects work.
“We had to do things that had never been done before,” said Zito. “Sets had to be built on angles. Spider-Man moves in ways unlike those of a stuntman on wires—I didn’t want to see wires or use wires.”
Equipping Doc Oc with fully-realized radio-controlled mechanical tentacles also proved challenging. But hardest of all was getting the web-generating process right. “I didn’t want to use the conventional animation you see in cartoons,” said Zito. “You can turn the TV on and see that stuff any time. This had to be different . . . and dazzling.”
Zito even began casting. He wanted an unknown to play Spider-Man because he didn’t want to deal with the “baggage” a star might bring. One of those considered for the part was Scott Leva, a stuntman who had played Spidey at public outings. Zito had hoped to sign Bob Hoskins as Doc Oc.
“And Stan Lee was not very subtly vying for the part of J. Jonah Jameson [Spidey’s boss],” said Zito, laughing. “He always reminded me how good he’d be for the part. Yes, I was considering him.”
But Cannon suddenly shelved the project, according to sources who worked on the production, after dropping a neat $1.5 million in preproduction, though they continue to run trade ads without Zito’s name [Zito is rumored now to be discussing the project with New World]. Those involved in the production offer a number of explanations for this turn of events. Zito believes that Cannon backed off because “A lot of the demons we glossed over with our enthusiasm resurfaced to haunt the company.” This included the realization by Cannon executives that Spider-Man was simply not well enough known throughout the world to justify, in their minds, the expense of making the film.
While Spider-Man had received ample exposure on television, they believed that this, too, worked against the project. But there were other reasons as well. Cannon found itself in dire financial trouble last year, bailed out by Warner Bros to the tune of $75 million. The risk of losing $15 million stopped being acceptable.
Meanwhile, Golan shifted gears, throwing his weight behind SUPERMAN IV. Cannon couldn’t have handled both productions, and Christopher Reeve had been hired on in a pay or play deal. Paying Reeve and Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder and Jackie Cooper for a movie that had to be delayed would have cost Cannon more than $1.5 million. Spider-Man suddenly became expendable. Zito feels the unpaid option money to Marvel is a smokescreen that masks the true reasons for the project’s demise.
Most of those who worked on the project are despondent over this turn of events. But they don’t fault Cannon. Zito and Lee both say that they sensed in Menachem Golan a sincere appreciation for the project and an understanding for their concern for its integrity. But in business terms, given Cannon’s travails, this was one web better left unspun for the moment.
Joe Zito directed Cannon hits MISSING IN ACTION and INVASION USA and was to film SPIDER-MAN for the studio.