Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 Was Written By The Creators Of A Beloved Superhero Series

In 2002, Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" shot the superhero genre into the box office stratosphere. It was the first film to outgross a "Star Wars" movie in heads-up, calendar-year competition, and, after the success of "Blade" and "X-Men," it proved that Marvel was the comic book brand du jour.

This was the payoff for a project that was decades in the making. Hollywood's Schlockmeister General Roger Corman held the rights to the web-slinger until the equally shameless Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, heads of The Cannon Group, acquired them in 1985. Golan and Globus had no affection for the character, though, which Marvel chief Stan Lee realized when they tried to take the web-head in a horror direction with Tobe Hooper at the helm. The duo then acceded to Lee's demands and assigned Joseph Zito, the underrated director of exploitation flicks like "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" and "Invasion U.S.A.," to the project. When Zito departed due to budgetary concerns, "Spider-Man" languished until Golan sold the theatrical rights to Carolco in the early 1990s, at which point James Cameron expressed interest in writing and directing the movie.

Though Cameron's vision never came to full fruition, his non-traditional take on the superhero (which included the controversial organic web-shooters) wound up being the rough template followed by "Jurassic Park" screenwriter David Koepp for Raimi's film. And though other writers contributed to the project, Koepp received sole screenplay credit in bringing Spidey to the big screen. It was an arduous journey, one that Raimi was not keen to repeat with "Spider-Man 2." So, he called upon "Smallville" creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar to write this sequel. This wound up being a mess, too!

In The Hollywood Reporter's 2021 oral history of "Smallville," Gough and Millar opened up about their contributions to the "Spider-Man 2" script. When they were first approached, they almost turned the offer down. "We were in the midst of the first season [of 'Smallville'], and we got a call that Sony wanted to meet us about something," Gough explained. "We were like, 'We don't have time.' They were like, 'You really need to go meet with them.'"

They were ultimately persuaded to drive from Warner Bros. in Burbank to Sony in Culver City (a bit of a hike). Upon their arrival, they were greeted by executive Matt Tolmach, who walked them over to the "Spider-Man" set. Here's where things got interesting. "They were doing some reshoots on the first one," Gough recalled, specifically on the climactic battle between the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire). He continued:

"We met Sam [Raimi] and Laura Ziskin and Tobey [Maguire]. They loved 'Smallville.' They had seen the pilot. The show had just premiered. They wanted us to write the 'Spider-Man' sequel. [Laughs.] We were like, 'Holy s***.' You can't say no to that job."

Gough and Millar eagerly signed on, but they soon found themselves writing with Koepp. When Raimi wasn't totally vibing with what they produced, he shook things up by hiring Michael Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," whose contributions were significant enough to earn him a story credit alongside Gough and Miles. Finally, Raimi turned to Oscar-winning "Julia" and "Ordinary People" screenwriter Alvin Sargent to pull these disparate pieces together, which earned Sargent sole screenplay credit. The result? Arguably the best superhero movie of all time.