The infamous abandoned ‘Twin Towers’ teaser trailer for 2002’s Spider-Man has hit the web, unearthed and restored in glorious fashion.
Back before the friendly neighbourhood hero changed the comicbook genre forever, the world got a glimpse at what director Sam Raimi had in-store for audiences.
The teaser was distributed to be shown in theatres alongside Heath Ledger’s A Knight’s Tale in 2001. However, it featured a piece of crucial imagery that led it to being taken down four months later – the World Trade Center.
Watch the nostalgic trailer below:
The first ever trailer shows a zippy, hammy heist sequence (‘It’s like taking candy from a baby!’), with robbers bidding an escape by helicopter. As they’re flying away, their vehicle halts mid-air – and starts zooming backwards. It stops, and the camera pans out, showing the helicopter trapped in a web between the Twin Towers.
The trailer has circulated the web (I’ll stop) for years now; though thanks to Yoshi Killer2S, a 4K restoration from the original 35mm film version can be viewed in all its pristine glory.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed and over 6,000 injured, film studios hurried to remove all images of the World Trade Center from their movies and promotional material. As well as the trailer, the first poster for Spider-Man was replaced, which originally showed the Twin Towers in Spidey’s lenses.
It’s a fun teaser, like an injection of pure noughties – especially the use of Lunatic Calm’s song, Leave You Far Behind. However, it was never intended for the movie itself – it was purely a bit of a visual marketing to hype up fans and soon-to-be Spidey lovers.
Hopefully, the trailer can be viewed in the spirit that was intended – a thrilling peek at a game-changing superhero, and a way of establishing the essential, almost symbiotic hometown relationship between Spider-Man and New York City.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.