David Fincher has opened up about how his idea for a Spider-Man movie was rejected by Marvel in the ’90s.
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In a new interview with The Guardian the Fight Club director revealed that he pitched an idea for a Spider-Man film in 1999. His version would skip past the “bitten by a radioactive spider” part of Spider-Man’s origin story and focus on Peter Parker as an adult instead.
“They weren’t fucking interested,” he told The Guardian. “And I get it. They were like: ‘Why would you want to eviscerate the origin story?’ And I was like: ‘’Cos it’s dumb?’
“That origin story means a lot of things to a lot of people, but I looked at it and I was like: ‘A red and blue spider?’ There’s a lot of things I can do in my life and that’s just not one of them.” Director Sam Rami was eventually hired over Fincher.
Fincher’s new film is assassin thriller The Killer starring Michael Fassbender. The Killer has been released in select cinemas today (October 27) before it streams on Netflix from November 10.
The film marks Fincher’s latest collaboration with Netflix following House Of Cards, Love Death & Robots, Voir, Mindhunter, and 2020 film Mank starring Gary Oldman. A petition to revive Mindhunter recently racked up thousands of signatures after the show was put on hold by Netflix after two seasons.
The Killer also marks a return for Fassbender, who has been largely absent from the screen after taking up auto racing in 2017. His last film role was in 2019’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix.
Fincher is best known for directing films Fight Club, Seven, Zodiac, The Social Network, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl.