Marvel Studios opened the gateway to all possibilities that can be explored within their animated and live-action films with their recent projects.
We saw Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, and Alfred Molina all pop up in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness explored further on that.
The directors of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, however, had planned major cameos from two of the most renowned Hollywood artists that couldn’t make it to the cinemas.
Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman spoke with Slash Film and explained how the cameos in the first installment would have blown fans away.
Miles Morales Learned To Websling From A Film
The directors almost included a scene that got removed in the final cut of the film which showed Miles Morales learning to web-sling from a film that was in development in the ‘80s.
“There’s a lot of stuff that we took out of the movie for good reasons. So there was a whole period of time where Miles, rather than learning about being Spider-Man from a comic book, learned it from watching the films. There was a movie version of a movie about Spider-Man in Miles’ universe about the real person Spider-Man,” said Rothman.
But, the fun part is that Sony Pictures gave high creative control to the directors to include an unfinished Spider-Man script from the ace director James Cameron.
Cameron was initially attached to the project during the ‘90s but Sam Raimi was hired instead. Before Tobey Maguire gave us his iconic take on the web-slinging hero from Queens, Tom Cruise almost had the part.
James Cameron And Tom Cruise Played Guest Stars
According to Collider, James Cameron left the film due to legal challenges and that’s how, Tom Cruise too, lost the opportunity.
Tom Cruise was also approached to play Iron Man but nothing came of it. He told IGN once —
“Marvel Studios came to me at a certain time and, when I do something, I wanna do it right.”
Rothman, in continuation with Slash Film, said that it would have been overwhelming for the audience to relate to the cameos.
“It was a James Cameron-directed movie with Tom Cruise as Spidey. Yes. Spidey. And it was James Cameron and Tom Cruise on the audio. And the fact that it’s taken us almost three minutes to explain this idea, gives you an idea of why it didn’t make it.”
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse ended up winning an Oscar in the best-animated film category.
The third installment, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, earlier slated for 2024 release, has been postponed by Sony, as per Variety.
Source: Slash Film
