Sure, Spider-Man: Homecoming is here but imagine a bizarro universe where Tobey Maguire kicked off the Spider-Man movies in a dark, moody style with F-bombs and Peter Parker apparently killing a man with his bare hands. Yep, Maguire’s original screen test is weird. This has to be seen to be believed…
Peter Parker is Bruce Lee?!?!
Things kick off nice and (relatively) normal for a Spidey flick. Criminals are about to mug a poor bystander when Peter Parker turns up but holy shit Tobey Maguire is ripped as hell, shirtless for absolutely no reason other than to show off, and rocking a Bruce Lee bod. And it only gets better from here.
Swearing is cool, kids
The crims start tossing off F-bombs at the webhead (not the smartest move, guys). “Get the fuck out of here” one of them yells, before being prompted to dance with death by a shadowy Peter Parker. This is utterly ridiculous… and I love it.
Ok, Peter Parker is Bruce Lee now. That's a thing.
Sam Raimi seems to have been mesmerised by Tobey Maguire’s physique because the fight scene turns into something from Game of Death with a bunch of weird jump cuts, close-ups and OTT sounds. All it’s missing are some Spider-Nunchucks.
PETER PARKER KILLS A MAN
Look, I was fine with Batman running over people in Arkham Knight but not killing them for… reasons. But you literally hear Peter Parker break someone’s neck. That man is dead. Spider-Man is a murderer. This is his first scene: franchise over.
Umm, what *is* that sound?
I don’t want to jump to dirty, dirty conclusions but whoever did the sound mixing/chose the backing track for this seems to have gone to down some… interesting avenues. Listen to 1:03-1:08 very closely (not too closely if you’re in work). It sure sounds like someone’s getting very excited, I’ll put it that way.
Watch it in all of its fantastically OTT glory above. And then wonder what could’ve been.
Image: Sony
