This month, dear reader, we are going to delve deep into Spider-Man movie lore and show you the live action Spidey you missed! Before Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire, there was another. Read on to find out who!
It was 1992 – Bill Clinton is answering questions about his underwear preference on the campaign trail, the Olympics are being held in Spain and France, Cartoon Network debuts with the old ‘40s cartoon “The Great Piggy Bank Robbery”, scandal hits England as Prince Charles and Princess Diana separate, Windows 3.1 is released, Donald Trump makes his movie debut in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and gas was a mere $1.05 a gallon. It was also the year Batman Returns came out and Spider-Man fans all over were waiting for their turn on the silver screen.
And they knew it was coming. Sony had the rights to the movie and they wanted to produce it. James Cameron had even reportedly signed up to make it. All fans could do was sit around and wait. And wait. And wait until Batman Forever came out and killed all hope of a comic book movie (until Men in Black hit the theaters almost a decade later and showed it could be done – and even then, it was another 5 years after that before Toby Maguire would suit up). So fans waited.
Well, not one fan. Dan Poole was so excited about the possibility of a Spider-Man movie and a bit alarmed over how slowly Sony seemed to be moving on this, so he decided to show it could be done in the hopes that James Cameron and Sony would get on the ball and maybe even bring him in on the project.
His 50 minute film, The Green Goblin’s Last Stand, an attempt to live action the story in Amazing Spider-Man #121-122.
No, you young ‘uns out there (looking at you, Bogenrieder), are thinking about what awful special effects these are, but let me remind you that CGI was far from a thing yet. These stunts were made live and the costuming? Well, I’ll take it over the Bat nipples we were getting in the movie theaters.
And let’s face it – Dan Poole gave all Spider-Man fans exactly what we were hoping for – live action Spidey that didn’t look obviously blue screened (we didn’t start using green screen primarily until later).
Several months ago, I asked JR what he thought of this and if he liked the Green Goblin in it. He said,
“I did indeed see that several years ago. Overall, I remember it being a fairly impressive effort for what it was, with what a budget of $500 as I recall? And at that time, I think most of us hard core fans ate up ANYTHING live action, and it was a sincere effort, which ‘covered a multitude of sins.’
As for ‘Norman’…well, that ponytail aside…to be critical of a local actor who had no template to work with other than a few cartoons and who was probably paid with a pizza would be unseemly.”
For the record, JR gave Poole more moola than he had – the budget was $400!
All Dan was really going for here is a 5 minute action trailer to get in front of Cameron.
He said he just wanted to show some superhero “ass kicking” and bring in Venom, Green Goblin, Doc Ock, and such, but when he started to go for the fight scene out of ASM #121-122, the story just screamed for a full treatment.
So, did it work? Did Poole get his work in front of Cameron? He tried. He got agents to send his tape in, he got meeting with Cameron’s assistant with promises Cameron would see the tape, he sent it in unsolicited. All the tapes came back unopened. He said, “I feel like I did everything short of rappelling down the side of the building in the costume to get in there.” He did eventually get to meet Cameron when he won an award for his making of, but the link to those details was dead.
He did send it to Stan Lee who wrote him a nice letter.
One of his driving beliefs is the same as the Crawlspace – Stay true to the characters. “I believe that the characters are strong enough to carry the movie or no one would be coming to see it in the first place. I believe the titles should be individual of the story you are telling, not numbered in their sequels like Superman IV or Die Hard III with a goofy subtitle. Anybody ever hear of a movie called The Dead Pool or Magnum Force? How about Live and Let Die or Moonraker? Take a lesson.” Though I can’t rightly say I would use Moonraker to make my point on anything.
Here is how he stacks up against his competitors:
IMDB ratings:
Spider-Man: Homecoming – 7.4
Spider-Man – 7.3
The Green Goblin’s Last Stand – 7.2
The Amazing Spider-Man – 6.9
The Amazing Spider-Man (TV Series) – 5.6
Not bad at all!
Unfortunately for Poole, this did not launch his career in film. He has two other credits in the IMDb which are The Father and the Bear and The Photon Effect.
Want more? Well, here is a behind the scenes making of The Green Goblin’s Last Stand:
Of course, we always want to give credit where credit is due, here at Cobwebs:
Peter Parker/Spider-Man: Dan Poole
Norman Osborn/Green Goblin: Jimmy Kinstle
Harry Osborn: Bob Tull
Gwen Stacy: Allison Adams
Produced, Edited & Directed by: Dan Poole
Screenplay Adapted by: Dan Poole
Green Goblin Mask: Eric Supensky
Bat Gliders: Donald Koch
Sound Effects: Dave Bannasch, Eric Supensky, John Schweitzer
Spider-Man Stunts: Dan Poole
Costumes: Beatrice E. Poole, Ted Frankenhausen
Gymnastics Coach: Tina Stallard
Green Goblin Stunts: Jim Grey, Scott Young, Matt Holder, Joe Weber, Jimi Kinstle, Dan Poole
Camera Operators: Jim Grey, Scott Young, Eric Supensky, Rei Spinnichio, Ray Schueler, Dan Poole
Additional Props & Technical Assistance: Tom Rupp – Center Stage Theater, Kathy Reite – Capital Manufacturing, Fred and Tina Rudtledge – Rudtledge Costume Company
And here is a Bullseye clip, but the footage is badly damaged:
All that is left now is to wonder why BD and his podcast crew haven’t been working on something like this already with the shut down! Sure, they can’t get together, but a creative crew like that could figure something out! Let your voice be heard, people!
Sources:
Brady, Terrance J. “Amazing Spider-Man.” Third Millennium Entertainment, www.teako170.com/poole.html.
“The Green Goblin’s Last Stand.” Alpha Dog Productions, 28 Aug. 2006, web.archive.org/web/20060828210329/http://www.alphadogproductions.net:80/greengoblin.html.
“The Green Goblin’s Last Stand.” Internet Movie Database, 2020, www.imdb.com/title/tt0360619/?ref_=nm_knf_i1.
“The Year 1992 from the People History.” The People History, 2004, www.thepeoplehistory.com/1992.html.
‘Nuff Said!
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I whole heartedly agree. I’ve heard nothing good about the original James Cameron treatment or script from those who’ve read it. This guy’s passion goes a long way to overlook the lack of polish that a big budget and more modern day equipment would bring. And as you can tell from reading Cobwebs, I’m a sucker for all that behind the scenes stuff!
I love fan movies like this, the sheer amount of passion put into them is always so satisfying to see. Considering the incredibly low budget, I really admire the resourcefulness put into some of those effects. I also think the idea of doing an adaptation of The Night Gwen Stacy Died is a much better one than anything I’ve seen of Cameron’s actual plans. The documentary is the real treat though, it’s really interesting to hear about the behind the scenes stuff, and all of the people who worked on it are pretty interesting.