What If Cannon Made Their Spider-Man Film?

Get ready, True Believers, because today’s the day! The time has finally come to travel Across The Spider-Verse with Miles Morales and various other versions of Spider-Man, and today I’m going to look back at the vision for a Spider-Man world that never truly took shape. Back before they brought us Masters of the Universe and dove headfirst into the world of DC Comics with Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, Cannon Films wanted the wall-crawler to be one of their blockbuster productions!

To call the whole ordeal hellacious would be putting it lightly, for a variety of reasons; confusion over the source material, multiple writers and numerous rewrites, and a revolving door of casting choices did nothing except land the project in developmental hell until the rights were eventually lost. The 80’s were a wild time when it came to attempting to get a Spider-Man movie off the ground, but you can’t say that Golan and Globus didn’t give it the old college try. Nearly 40 years later, we know that the Cannon-ized version of Spider-Man never happened (outside of a brief “preview” trailer used to sell the film that can be seen on YouTube), but here today I’m going to take a page out of the Marvel playbook and write up my own “What If…?” and see if I can come up with the ultimate Cannon Films version of Spider-Man!

Using the rules we set in place here for previous columns like this one, I’ll only be casting people who were either officially linked to production at one point, or stars that had already worked under the Cannon banner. During the trials and tribulations of getting their version of Spider-Man made, the closest thing to a sure thing was the casting of stuntman Scott Leva as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Not only do promo photos of Leva as Spidey exist, but he also portrayed the character(s) on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #262! Since all signs pointed to Leva landing the role at the time (a role that at one point was being built for Tom Cruise to take, before his rise to superstardom), we’ll keep him as our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man here.

And now, onto Spidey’s supporting cast!

Doris Roberts and Martin Balsam as Aunt May Parker and Uncle Ben Parker: Peter’s guardians, a pair of working class retirees who lovingly tease each other and their somewhat awkward nephew. We are introduced to them in the beginning of the film, during an opening scene reminiscent of your typical 80’s coming of age comedy, where Peter is running late for one of his college courses. As a nod to his appearance in Death Wish 3, Martin Balsam will don the infamous Brooklyn Dodgers “B” hat that stood for “Bennett” in that film, and would obviously stand for “Ben” here.

Allan Kayser as Flash Thompson: Kayser, best known for playing Bubba on the classic sitcom Mama’s Family, previously starred in the Cannon sex comedy Hot Chili. He’ll have a small role in the film as Flash Thompson, Peter Parker’s old high school bully who hasn’t exactly let go of his old ways when he runs into Parker on the campus of Empire State University.

Valerie Bertinelli as Mary Jane Watson: The former One Day At A Time star did some time under the Cannon banner, and her natural good looks and likable demeanor make her a perfect fit for the object of Peter Parker’s affection. Will this also put her in the crosshairs of those who wish to do our hero harm? Just keep on reading…

Billy Drago as Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard: Bad boy Billy would once again be responsible for the heavy lifting on the heel side of things. In this Spider-Man film, Dr. Connors would be a mentor to Peter Parker, entrusting the young student to aid him in researching the ability of particular reptiles that have the ability to grow their limbs back. Connors would be seeking a cure for his own missing arm, but when the serum that enables the replication of reptile qualities contributes to a lab explosion, we get not only the origin of our villain, but our hero! 

So this is the central cast for the beginning portion of the film. Peter Parker is a smart, soft-spoken college student who deals with things like noogies from his old “friend” Flash Thompson and makes ga-ga eyes at Mary Jane from afar. His Aunt and Uncle encourage him to become more confident, feeling that one day all of his studying and research will enable him to do great things. After a lab explosion during his attempt to help Dr. Connors find a cure for his handicap, both Peter and Connors are transformed; Connors mutates into a reptilian monster that the Daily Bugle simply dubs “The Lizard”, while Peter is bitten by a spider a la his comic book origin and finds himself gaining the traits of a spider.

During Peter’s recuperation at home, the Parker house is burglarized, and Peter’s attempts to stop the crook leads to the self-realization of his newfound powers. Unable to handle them at the time of the incident, Peter is overwhelmed, and Uncle Ben protects his nephew, taking the bullet that would sadly kill him. It’s a grittier twist on the origin story of Spider-Man, but it’s right out of the Cannon playbook, and helps set the course for Spider-Man/Peter to vow to use his powers for justice, and to seek out Uncle Ben’s killer.

Connors, unable to control his new Lizard persona, rampages through the streets of New York with an insatiable bloodlust, attacking innocent people and striking fear in the hearts of the city’s population. One of his victims just happens to be a friend of a particular character, which leads to our next cast member:

Steve James as Luke Cage aka Power Man: the protector of the city streets, defending the less fortunate. An urban legend states that the “Power Man” is invincible, as supposedly no one has ever seen him get hurt. Cage promises to defend his neighborhood against the threat of The Lizard, but he’s also not too sure what to make of these rumors of a “Spider-Man” that’s been taking matters into his own hands. When the two heroes confront each other (as Spider-Man is about to take his revenge on Uncle Ben’s killer, who has gone into hiding on one of Cage’s streets), we get a little hero versus hero brawling before the two combine forces and bring Ben’s killer into custody. Spider-Man now knows he can count on Luke Cage and vice versa, but there’s one man who isn’t looking to become chummy with the web-slinger anytime soon…

John P. Ryan as J. Jonah Jameson: the publisher of the Daily Bugle newspaper, who loves to sensationalize but rarely rationalize. Jameson determines that both The Lizard and Spider-Man are equally responsible for the carnage that’s been bestowed upon NYC, despite eyewitness accounts of Spider-Man stopping crimes and never being seen at the site of a Lizard attack. Unhappy that the NYPD has been unable to bring either of these menaces into custody, Jameson offers a $50,000 reward for the capture of these “creatures”, which draws the interest of…

Miles O’Keeffe as Kraven The Hunter: O’Keeffe had previously played Tarzan for Cannon, so taking up the mantle of Kraven shouldn’t have been too much of a stretch. Kraven becomes obsessed with not just capturing, but killing The Lizard and Spider-Man to boost his own profile. His sociopathy is on full display when he demands half of the reward money up front by holding Jameson at knifepoint, and he becomes further and further unhinged with every scene he’s in.

Now, to me, this sets the stage for something completely plausible within the confines of Cannon’s supposed budget at the time ($10 million). It’s obvious from early drafts that they weren’t looking to follow the source material (at one point Spider-Man was being written as something more akin to a Universal Monster than a superhero, an actual spider/man hybrid), but doing things like combining Spider-Man and The Lizard’s origin story gives a reason for those characters to be tied together, and also gives Cannon a grotesque monster to work with. The inclusion of Steve James as Luke Cage also brings some of the old Cannon standby’s to the forefront; urban decay and civil unrest. The character of Cage here would be something like a Guardian Angel, patrolling the streets and watching out for the impoverished and less fortunate. Peter Parker learns to accept his new powers and heed the last words of his dying uncle (with great power comes great responsibility) while at the same time using his knowledge of science to try and reverse Dr. Connors’ transformation into The Lizard and rid him of his monstrous side. Peter’s budding confidence during the second half of the film will earn him the attention and affection of MJ, but when Spider-Man saves her from a mugger, that’s when Kraven decides to use her as a pawn to draw him out. The climactic battle at the end sees Spider-Man battling both Kraven and The Lizard, Luke Cage rallying his followers to take on Kraven’s underlings (a bunch of generic black ops types), a damsel in distress, a whole lot of webbing effects, and a city that sees Spider-Man as their new symbol of hope.

So there you have it, a superhero film that stays true to the Cannon formula with nods to some of the wants and expectations that were discussed as the Spider-Man scripts bounced around back in the 80’s. Could it have been a breakout hit, or merely just another cult classic? Would any potential success lead to a very different type of MCU (Marvel Cannon Universe)? Maybe somewhere out there in the multiverse there’s a Spider-Man movie that was made by Cannon, but here on Earth we’ll just have to spin stories like this one and wonder what if.