David Fincher Says ‘Social Network’ Sequel Would Be a ‘Can of Worms,’ Recalls Pitching ‘Spider-Man’ Film About Grown-Up Peter Parker: The Origin Story Is ‘Dumb’
Before Sam Raimi landed the directing gig on Sony’s 2002 comic book tentpole “Spider-Man,” it was David Fincher who met with the studio to try and get his own spin on the web-slinger to the big screen. In a new interview with The Guardian to mark the release of his latest movie, “The Killer,” the director remembered not seeing eye to eye with the studio over what a “Spider-Man” movie could be. They wanted an origin story, but he wanted to skip over the whole “bitten by a radioactive spider” part and focus on a grown-up Peter Parker.
“They weren’t fucking interested,” Fincher said. “And I get it. They were like: ‘Why would you want to eviscerate the origin story?’ And I was like: ‘’Cause it’s dumb?’ That origin story means a lot of things to a lot of people, but I looked at it and I was like: ‘A red and blue spider?’ There’s a lot of things I can do in my life and that’s just not one of them.”
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Sam Raimi’s film, featuring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, would in fact tell the origin story of Spider-Man. The film was an enormous success with $825 million at the worldwide box office. It’s $114 million domestic debut set a record for at the time for highest-grossing opening, and it was the first movie to ever debut to over $100 million in a single weekend. Raimi would direct two more “Spider-Man” movies.
Elsewhere in his Guardian interview, Fincher was asked about a potential sequel to his Oscar-winning Facebook drama “The Social Network” given all the ongoing controversies with Meta. The director didn’t have much to say on the matter other than the following tease: “Aaron [Sorkin, who wrote the film] and I have talked about it, but, um … that’s a can of worms.”
Sorkin said in 2021 that “what has been going on with Facebook these last few years is a story very much worth telling, and there is a way to tell it as a follow up to ‘The Social Network,’ and that’s as much as I know.” But he also said on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that the only way a sequel to the movie moves forward is if Fincher agrees to direct it. Based on Fincher’s new interview, it sounds like that might be too much of a “can of worms.”
Fincher’s “The Killer” is now playing in select theaters ahead of its Nov. 10 streaming launch on Netflix.
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