Spider-Man 4 lost storyboards reveal Bruce Campbell as Mysterio

Storyboards from the lost Spider-Man 4 movie from Sam Raimi have been floating around, and the images reveal the planned role for Bruce Campbell.

Many of us are well aware of Campbell’s cameos in all three of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films. Going way back with the director (they broke into the business together), Campbell always had a place in Raimi’s mainstream Spidey flicks. We all certainly came to expect it by the third film.

In the original film, Campbell appears as a wrestling show promoter. He’s the one to actually give Peter Parker his “Spider-Man” name, just before his match with Bonesaw McGraw. Despite how small the role is, Campbell made it very memorable by owning it as he always does.

When Spider-Man 2 came along, Campbell would have another cameo, this time as a snooty usher. He refuses to let Peter in to see Mary Jane’s stage show after he arrives late. Campbell would play yet another character in Spider-Man 3, this time as a French Maître d’. In all three of these short scenes, Campbell always stole the show.

I can confidently say this is the best part of Spider-Man 3.

Perhaps that is why Raimi seems to have had bigger plans for Campbell in the fourth movie. Spider-Man 4 went into production in 2007, but would languish in development hell for over two years until Raimi withdrew himself from the project. Unhappy with the multiple rewrites and pressure from the studio, Raimi walked away, causing Sony to wind up rebooting the series instead.

So what would have happened in Spider-Man 4? It’s hard to say what the final product would have looked like, but unearthed storyboards from the halted film suggest Spidey would be fighting Vulture and Mysterio. On the official website of Jeffrey Henderson, who worked with Raimi on the film’s storyboards, we get a glimpse at what could have been. Perhaps the most interesting of them all is the reveal of Mysterio’s face underneath his mask, which shows a very familiar face…

via PlanetHenderson.com via PlanetHenderson.com

That’s undoubtedly Bruce Campbell in that photo. And while anything can happen from storyboarding the film to casting it, this suggests there was some serious consideration for casting Campbell as Mysterio. We might have missed out on the greatest comic book movie villain of all time!

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These have apparently been floating around for a while, but I’ve only just become aware of them. It’s also worth nothing that this is speculation — while Henderson clearly had Bruce in mind when doing the storyboards, it has never been confirmed by Campbell nor Raimi that he’d have definitely played the part. Would have been amazing, though!

You can view the rest of the storyboard images at Planet Henderson.