David Fincher Talks About His Rejected SPIDER-MAN Movie Pitch Which Skipped the "Dumb" Origin Story

After Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 movie was scrapped, Sony Pictures started taking pitches from filmmakers for a reboot, and David Fincher was one of the directors who went in to make his pitch. Obviously, the pitch didn’t go very well because Fincher never got to make his film.

The story he wanted to tell would have skipped the origin story of Peter Parker turning into Spider-Man, and it would’ve focused on the story involving Gwen Stacy’s death. He was looking at telling the origin story in a ten-minute one-shot titled sequence that would have taken audiences through Peter Parker’s entire backstory.

His pitch was rejected, though, because the studio really wanted a retelling of the origin story, but Fincher thought it was “dumb.” During an interview with The Guardian, Fincher talked about his pitch, which picked up with Peter Parker as an adult, but said, "They weren't f –king interested." He added:

"And I get it. They were like: 'Why would you want to eviscerate the origin story?' And I was like: '[because] 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."

Fincher went on to direct Panic Room instead, which was great! But, I think Fincher would’ve made a very cool and unique Spider-Man movie. The filmmaker previously talked about the version of the Spider-Man Marvel movie he wanted to make, saying:

“My impression what Spider-Man could be is very different from what Sam [Raimi] did or what Sam wanted to do. I think the reason he directed that movie was because he wanted to do the Marvel comic superhero. I was never interested in the genesis story. I couldn't get past a guy getting bit by a red and blue spider. It was just a problem… It was not something that I felt I could do straight-faced. I wanted to start with Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin, and I wanted to kill Gwen Stacy.

“The title sequence of the movie that I was going to do was going to be a ten minute — basically a music video, an opera, which was going to be the one shot that took you through the entire Peter Parker [backstory]. Bit by a radio active spider, the death of Uncle Ben, the loss of Mary Jane, and [then the movie] was going to begin with Peter meeting Gwen Stacy. It was a very different thing, it wasn't the teenager story. It was much more of the guy who's settled into being a freak.”

In the end, Fincher didn’t really need Spider-Man on his resume. He’s been doing just fine making great movies. Would you have liked to see Fincher get to make his Spider-Man movie?