Spider-Man 2 certainly is the best film of the original trilogy directed by Sam Raimi. It was a big upgrade upon the original film. Sadly, Spider-Man 3 wasn’t as great as 1 or 2 because Sony wanted to put in 3 villains at once instead of listening to Raimi’s advice. And when Spider-Man 3 didn’t have the critics on its side, Sony went behind Raimi’s back and rebooted Spider-Man with 2 more mediocre films. Anyway, we can’t blame them for that because their nuisance is what led to a Spider-Man & Avengers crossover.
We love Spider-Man in the MCU. None of us want Spider-Man to go away from the MCU, and that was made pretty clear when Sony tried to take him away from Marvel last year. Anyway, they brought him back with a new & better deal and we’re all in for that. But before we get to the future, let’s take a trip to the past.
Spider-Man 2 almost related to not one but two Avengers. First, it obviously gave us that Doctor Strange reference. Here’s what Raimi had to say about that reference upon recently announcing how he has now become the director of Doctor Strange 2 in a funny turn of events:
“I loved Doctor Strange as a kid, but he was always after Spider-Man and Batman for me, he was probably at number five for me of great comic book characters. He was so original, but when we had that moment in Spider-Man 2 I had no idea that we would ever be making a Doctor Strange movie, so it was really funny to me that coincidentally that line was in the movie. I gotta say I wish we had the foresight to know that I was going to be involved in the project.”
Maybe Raimi could double back on that line and somehow include Tobey Magurie’s Spider-Man in Doctor Strange 2 next year. We’ll have to wait and see if that happens. But there’s another interesting fact about another Avenger who almost appeared in Spider-Man 2. In the original script that Raimi wrote for Spider-Man 2, he almost included Tony Stark just like he referenced Doctor Strange. Can you imagine that our favorite Avenger almost featured in Spider-Man 2.
In Raimi’s draft, we would have seen Tony Stark be revealed as the inventor of Otto Octavius’ robotic tentacles. That would’ve been crazy. We don’t know whether Stark would’ve appeared in the film or not, but even his name coming up as a connection would’ve been huge for the future of the character. Maybe Sony would’ve also taken Iron Man away from Marvel since he wasn’t as big of a deal back then. While we’re glad that Iron Man didn’t go anywhere because then the MCU wouldn’t have been the way it is today, but inner me still wonders what would’ve happened if the likes of Doctor Strange & Iron Man appeared in one of the original Spider-Man movies.
Things don’t end here. Before these 2 Avengers reference, we actually got very close to seeing the greatest most lovable X-Men character in the original Spider-Man movie. Hugh Jackman had agreed to cameo as Logan in Spider-Man. In 2013, Hugh Jackman told that the planned cameo would’ve had him simply walking across a shot. It would’ve been just like one of Stan Lee’s cameos. And a connection between X-Men & Spider-Man would’ve been established. Just imagine, Spider-Man could’ve been a link to the X-Men & the Avengers way back in the early 2000s.
Maybe in an alternate Universe, all this does happen. Anyway, it didn’t happen for a very obscure reason. Jackman was in New York during the filming of Raimi’s Spider-Man. He was ready to shoot the cameo, but they couldn’t find the suit. Jackman said that it “was stuck in something”. For such a small reason, a Logan-Spider crossover didn’t happen. Too bad. But now we’re closest to seeing Spider-Man, Wolverine and Doctor Strange together in the MCU. Iron Man won’t be there, but 3 out of 4 is still a great outcome.
