The Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films were celebrated for their authentic portrayal of the beloved Marvel superhero, especially the iconic red-and-blue costume. Interestingly, renowned artist Alex Ross created multiple alternate designs for the Sam Raimi-directed movie, though they ultimately did not appear in the final cut. One of these designs later found new life when it was adopted by Peter Parker from Earth-8532, serving as the main outfit for his darker alter ego, the lethal Spider-Shot.
In a 2000 interview with Ain’t It Cool News, Ross shared his experience of being commissioned to design a Spider-Man suit for the anticipated 2002 film. Initially, he had been approached regarding a different project, a Fantastic Four movie, but his curiosity led him to express interest in Spider-Man. A contact within Marvel’s Los Angeles office informed him that they had yet to finalize the costume design for the film.
Unused Spider-Man Movie Costume Finds a New Purpose with Spider-Shot
During Ross’s discussion with Ain’t It Cool News, he recounted how he was inspired by a proposed Spider-Man costume designed by his friend, artist David Williams. He felt that this design would align perfectly with what they needed for the film: “I told him at that point that I had a design, and I was speaking again of my friend’s design, that I’d be ready to pass onto them.” The collaboration resulted in a striking redesign of Spider-Man’s attire, replacing the bright blue with a more subdued black, while also limiting the web motif to the mask and upper body.
At the time, superhero films were relatively scarce in Hollywood, and the few that were produced made significant alterations to the colorful costumes that fans recognized from the comics. Ross pointed out this trend, referencing how the first X-Men movie, released in 2000, deviated notably from traditional comic aesthetics.
“If you think about it in terms of real cinema, people have no reason to understand why a person who suddenly reaches a certain fantastic science-fiction ability is going to turn around and want to garb themselves in some kind of colorful, attractive disguise.”
Although Ross and Williams’ concepts ultimately went unused, they served as an artistic springboard for the Assassin Spider-Man, or Spider-Shot, a deadly version of Peter Parker introduced in the 2008 comic, What If? Spider-Man vs. Wolverine #1. In this story, Spider-Man is trained by the Rook to become the ultimate assassin on his alternate Earth.
Alex Ross: A Key Influence in Superhero Cinema
The Artist’s Influence Resonates Across the Industry
While the original designs created by Williams and Ross may not have graced the silver screen, Alex Ross was later brought on to contribute to Spider-Man 2, where his stunning artwork featured in the film’s opening credits that recapped the previous story. Ross’s impact on superhero films goes even further; he noted that producer Avi Arad had utilized his artwork to pitch Marvel characters to Hollywood executives:
“(Arad) had already been using copies of Marvels to show people in Hollywood what the Marvel properties should be able to look like on-screen.”
This narrative about Ross’s journey with Spider-Man highlights his substantial influence on the superhero film renaissance of the early 2000s. Despite the initial design not making it to cinema in 2002, there remains hope that the character of Spider-Shot may one day appear in a film adaptation.
Signature works by Ross, such as Marvels and Kingdom Come, released in the 1990s, presented a more realistic and grounded view of iconic characters thought to be impossible to adapt into live-action films. This, combined with advances in computer technology during the same era, made the adaptation of superhero narratives into film much more plausible than ever before. While the original Spider-Man costume remains part of cinematic history, the potential for Spider-Shot to make a film debut in the future is tantalizing.