David Fincher Was Going To Direct a SPIDER-MAN Movie and Here's What We Know About It

After Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 movie was canceled by Sony Pictures, the studio started meeting with directors to reboot the franchise. One of the filmmakers they brought on board to develop a reboot was David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en) and I have no doubt he would have delivered an incredible Spider-Man movie! He was also actually considered for the director job along with Chris Columbus and Michael Bay, before Sam Raimi landed the gig.

The story he wanted to tell would have pretty much 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.

Fincher 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.”

As a fan of Fincher’s films, of course, I’m curious about how this movie would’ve turned out. I’m happy that Raimi’s Spider-Man movies exist, but I would have liked to see Fincher’s reboot, but with the same cast of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. I wonder if they would have still been cast under Fincher, or if he would have cast completely different actors.

Fincher never took the project because the studio wanted that fresh start with an origin story, and Fincher just wasn’t interested in that at all.

This is just one of those big what if movie projects that would have been interesting to see happen. What are your thoughts on the missed opportunity of Fincher directing a Spider-Man movie?