I don’t think there will be any person on this planet with average amount of human intelligence in his head who will be unknown by the name Stan Lee and if it’s so, then I’m feeling really sad for that person because it’s another thing about being a fan of Stan Lee’s creations but if you don’t know about a revolutionary and one of the greatest creative minds of all-time then you aren’t living your life. Well, on the flip side of this world we also have people like Sam Raimi who once forged the signature of Stan Lee.
Sam Raimi has disclosed a very interesting story in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He shared an incident when Sam Raimi forged the signature of Lee. He said,
“My first Stan Lee experience is pretty bad, actually,” Raimi explained. “I was an avid reader of Spider-Man and The Avengers in the late ’70s, and come 1980, I was working on my first horror film in New York. I was also working as a counselor at a camp in Algonquin Park. One day they decided to have a Marvel banquet and said, ‘Can you get Stan Lee to sign some posters?’ I was so naive I said OK. I went to Marvel and asked if I could see Stan Lee. And the people there flipped. ‘Are you out of your mind?! You can’t see Stan Lee!’ So I spent the whole cab ride back to the airport signing “Stan Lee” on all these posters. There I was, 20 years old, forging his signature.”
But, as we all know that it was none other than Sam Raimi who directed the Spider-Man movie back in 1999 and has also revealed another incident when he was ordered that he has to include a Stan Lee cameo in the movie.
And after hearing that idea of having Stan Lee’s cameo in the movie, Raimi revealed that he was totally against the idea but because he was a new director working on to his career he didn’t oppose the idea too much and the scene eventually came out on the big screen.
It was none other than Sam Raimi who called that scene as one of his favorite scenes of all-time. Sam Raimi revealed that his experiences haven’t been on a great level with Stan Lee but the respect he has in his heart for the creative genius is pure and real. Although, at that time, thoughts inside the heart and mind of Raimi were quite different than he has now. He said,
“I got the job for Spider-Man in 1999. And [Marvel’s head] Avi Arad said, ‘I want you to put Stan in the movie.’ And I was like, ‘No. I know Stan, and he can’t act,'” Raimi wrote. “And Avi was, ‘I want him in the movie. We did it for X-Men, we’re doing it here.’ Now imagine you’re a minor director in England doing Macbeth and you’re told, ‘Put the writer in the play.’ It sounds absurd. ‘Fine, you want Shakespeare in the play, I’ll put Shakespeare in the play.’ Now it’s one of my favorite parts in the movie.”
We have seen a lot of tribute messages and videos on the internet but I think the incident which Joe Quesada who is the Chief Creative Officer at Marvel shared is one of the best as he shared an old and famous incident between him and Lee. He described the incident in his words,
“Stan was doing these panels and they asked me to just come up and say hi,” Quesada explained. “I felt a little goofy but I came up and shook his hand. I think the microphone caught it but I whispered in his ear, I said ‘hey, they just wanted me to come up here and shake your hand, but while I’m up here I want to say thank you, you saved my life.’ Because the life that I have today, there’s a direct line to that first comic book to here.”
Comment down your tribute messages for the Great Stan Lee down in the comments section, please.
