The Best Movies Marvel Never Made

Lost media is always a fun topic, whether it be staying up late to talk about lost cartoon episodes, video games that never made it to the screen, or commercials that were taken off TV for being too risqué. Marvel is a huge company, and a very popular one at that. The Disney subsidiary has been churning out hit projects for over a decade at this point, so it’s no wonder that there are some projects that are currently sitting in the Marvel movies vault, never to see the light of day. Let’s take a look at a few of those projects. 

Cannon Films’ Spider-Man

The history of Spider-Man in film is so interesting and tumultuous, all of which you can follow along with in Vice’s docuseries Icons Unearthed: Spider-Man. But let’s talk specifically about the saga involving Cannon Films and their take on the web slinger. Strap in, because this is a roller coaster.

After the underwhelming turnout for Superman III, studios became apprehensive about greenlighting more superhero/comic movies. This meant that any comic book movies that were greenlit had a lot riding on them. It was a make or break period and the odds were slim.

In comes Cannon Films. The rights to the Spider-Man property had expired and were no longer owned by Roger Corman (again, watch the Vice docuseries for the specifics on that). Marvel then optioned the film rights to Cannon for a cool $225,000, something that would be considered a steal in today’s market of superhero excellence. But, back then this was considered a gamble. The caveat to this is that the rights were to revert to Marvel if no Spider-Man film was made by 1990. 

The first script was a complete misunderstanding of the character, more akin to The Fly than the Spider-Man that we all know and love. It had Peter Parker being subjected to cruel experiments and him having to fight his way through a laboratory against other mutants. Oh, and he was also a giant tarantula monster. So there’s that. Interesting concept, would work as a great horror film, but not a Spider-Man film.

Stan Lee over at Marvel hated it and promptly ordered a new script and concept, understandably so. The second script had Peter Parker as a college student who is studying under Dr. Octavius (also known as Doc Ock). Peter is transformed into Spider-Man through the same accident that turns Otto into Doc Ock. This involved a lot of science like anti-gravity and electromagnetic effects, something that could work but doesn’t really hit on the usual themes of responsibility and family that Spider-Man usually does. After one more rewrite, storyboarding, and a planned budget in the $15 to $20 million ballpark, the film was then sold to 21st Century. Ads were made, the film was talked about at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989, and a start date was even announced. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. After a tentative production deal, the project simply fizzled out. 

Nick Fury

Before Samuel L. Jackson became the one true Nick Fury, there was plans to bring the character to the big screen in 2006. Andrew W. Marlowe was brought on the write the script, this being before his hit show Castle premiered in 2009. The film was going to be based on Jim Steranko’s series Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. The series of comic books covers Nick Fury’s adventures and missions as one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agents and a member of the Howling Commandos. It also introduced Nick’s primary love interest in Contessa, his second-in-command. Interesting enough, this is where readers became acquainted with the villain organization known as Hydra. 

As this concept was constructed before the talented Samuel L. Jackson was brought on as Nick Fury, this wasn’t made for that version of the character. However, Marlowe said that the script could be tweaked to fit Jackson’s portrayal if need be. The project has not been spoken of since, so it’s safe to say that it’s dead in the water. 

Big Hero 6 Sequel

Can you believe we almost got a Big Hero 6 sequel? The animated movie has received praise for it’s portrayal of grief and healing, along with the effects of what the absence of healing does to a person. There have also been talks that Big Hero 6 deserved the same amount of love that Frozen received, but there’s no reason to pit two amazing films against each other. Big Hero 6 isn’t a musical and that contributed a lot to Frozen’s success. 

Anyway, the sequel film was asked about to Don Hall and Chris Williams who were the creatives behind the original film, their sentiments being that they love those characters and would love to revisit that story. We would get two follow ups in the form of Big Hero 6: The Series and Baymax! Both aired on Disney XD and Disney Channel.