SPIDER-MAN Scriptment BY JAMES CAMERON Courtesy the james cameron newsletter at: www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Boulevard/4435/ 1 FADE IN: A geometrical pattern fills the screen. Silver threads in moonlight. Part of a spider's intricate web. It moves slightly and we see behind it... the glint of an eye. Pulling back. Two eyes, blinking in the darkness, behind a mesh of fishnet material. Continue pulling back to reveal a face. A face shrouded in darkness, covered by a concentric web-like pattern. Behind the mesh we catch a hint of the features. Not much. It is the eyes which command our attention. Pulling back... head and shoulders. A black night background. Wider still, revealing a muscular silhouetted figure, sitting cross-legged with zen-like composure. The arms are straight down, between the legs. Behind the figure is some kind of steel structure. But wait. As we pull back, city light have come into view, and now skyscrapers... but they are above us. Sticking down into frame like the mothership in Close Encounters. CAMERA ROTATES now, 180 degrees... Putting the city where it belongs... below us. And revealing that the figure is hanging by his hands, by a thread like wire... corss-legged and chilled out. Upside down. He is wearing a form-hugging body-suit. Hard to make out the details in the moonlight. Who is this whacko? Keep pulling back. The figure is hanging, like a spider, from a radio mast high above... Manhatten. There are the familiar landmarks... Pan Am and Chrysler Buildings. Empire State. FIGURE (V.O) Welcome to one of my favorite night spots. The service is slow, but the thing I like about it... it's not usually too crowded. 2 The Empire State building is lower than us so there's only one place we could be... 1400 feet above the street, on the radio mast of the north tower of the World Trade Center. A quarter of a mile below us the traffic moves liked like corpuscles of light through the circulatory system of the city. We pull back further, orbiting now in a dizzying panorama of the greatest city on this planet until the silhouetted figure is as tiny as... well... a bug. FIGURE (V.O.) It all looks so... (note)civilized... from up here, doesn't it? Like there's some kind of logic to it all. It's all so clear. But you get down there on the street and nothing's clear. THE STREET. Cabs and cops. People on the move. Humanity in all it's variegated glory... from stockbrokers to hookers, priests to junkies. A CORNER NEWSTAND. Pushing in on a stack of Newsweeks. Close on the top one. The cover is a grainy, long lens black and white shot, like a UFO photo, of a guy in tights apparently crawling up the side of a building. The headline reads: THE SPIDER MAN - HERO OR VIGILANTE? An arm, wearing red spandex and a red glove, drops down from tyhe roof of the newstand. The news-guy whirls as the are slaps two bucks on the counter and grabs a Newsweek. The owenr rushes out the door... looks on top of his kiosk. There's nothing there. He looks up, all around... nothing. He grins and holds his fist in the air. OWNER (note)ALRIIIIIGHT! CUT TO THE FIGURE, atop the WTC. Still hanging. He pulls the Newsweek out of his belt and stares at the cover in the moonlight. 3 SPIDERMAN (V.O.) How can I expect them to get it. I don't even get it. I (note)do wish they'd at least get my name right. It's Spider Man... not (note)The Spider Man. Jeez. Boneheads. I need a better publicist. He rips the magazine easily in half, the in quarters, then in eighths... somehere in here we realize that this takes more strength in the hands than you or I have. He releases the stamp-sized shreds. Camera drifts with them as they flutter down over the city like confetti. SPIDERMAN Wouldn't they have kittens if they knew Spiderman wasn't even a (note)man. Just a kid named... (note)PETER! CLOSE UP on an elderly lady yelling, "Peter... you're going to be late!" It's morning and she's calling up the stairs to... PETER PARKER. Age 17. Peter is in the bathroom, popping a zit in the mirror. He puts on his glasses and checks his look in the mirror. Still the same. Nerdy. He doesn't care. Screw 'em. He grabs a big stack of books and heads downstairs. Over breakfast we meet his aunt MAY and Uncle BENJAMIN. Nice people but way too old to be the kind of role-model parents a kid needs. Still, he loves them even if he forgets to actually mention it 99% of the time like any kid. Aunt May is thin and fusses over Peter too much, He indulges her. When he has time, which he doesn't this morning. Peter's parents were killed in a plane crash when he was sic. He woke up one day without a family. Somehow he always filt guilty that they went away. As if he had done something wrong. His 17 yar old mind tells him it was just fate, just a random accident... but deep in his subconscious that scared 6 year old still cries, begging for them to come home... he won't cause trouble anymore... he'll go to bed when they tell him. 4 Uprooted, moved from the only home he knew, in Maryland, to Ben and May's modest bungalow in suburban Flushing, NY. It is a low to middle income boredom-zone of tract homes pushed too close together. Peter actually goes to high school in nearby Forest Hills, a snotty high-income neighborhood. This makes him a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks in the eyes of his status conscious schoolmates. Peter is a bright kid. He doesn't have many friends. He is ostracizes for his interest in science. Our MTV culture frowns on people who think too much. Intellectual curiosity is decidedly un-hip. Who cares about where the universe came from or how the Greeks hammered Troy? Did you hear the new Pearl Jam album? Peter is defiant. He thinks they are the real losers. They'll be flipping burgers while he's discovering the cure for cancer. We'll see who wins in the long run. He wears his isolation like a badge... with an air of superiority. In fact, he is awesomely shy and desperately lonely and unhappy. But whenever this occurs to him, he loses himself in his studies, and finds a kind of peace. He has thbe 17 year-old's senses that he knows everything about the world, and can see so clearly all the things that are wrong with it. In fact his is very insulated and knows almost nothing about human nature in all its complexity. He doesn't even understant himself very well. Because his life of the mind is his badge of superiority, he frowns on the pursuits of the body. Sports? Forget it. Bunch of jock boneheads crashing into each other. Like stag elk in rit. Senseless violence. Girls? Good in theory, but how do you talk to them? Dancing? No way. He tried it once. Not a pretty sight. Peter is a virgin. And apt to remain that way for a while. He's your basic sexually pent-up adolescent. One other thing about Peter. He is a plucky kid. He's got true grit. He's never had an opportunity to prove this, to himself or anyone else. But he will soon... 5 That day at school, we see Peter with his friends, who are mostly straight-A misfit types like himself. In his last class of the day... his favorite, BIOLOGY... Peter daydreams about the girl across the room. Mary Jane Watson. Peter is captivated by her, thogh she doesn't seem to know he exists. The teacher tells them to pair up for the term science projects and to Peter's surprise Mary Jane comes all the way over to him and asks to be his partner. Mary Jame needs at least and A in the class, or she won't graduate with a B average, and then her parents won't buy her a car like they promised. So she teams herself with Peter the Nerd. Mary Jane's girl-friends in the class exchange looks and smirks. Peter flushes with the sudden proximity of the girl he has watched from across the room all year. She even smells good. He feels giddy. Peter of course knows he has no hope. Mary Jane is going out with one of the school's top studs... Nathan McCreery, AKA "Flash". Nathan is a top athlete, playing on the senior football team and head of the gymnastics team. He is also a tennis snob and drives a Porche. Peter hates him utterly, on general principles. Peter takes the bus. His aunt and uncle don't have much money. Mary Jane is a popular girl, in a "sosh" clique, way out of Peter's league. She has it all... looks, money, handsome boyfriend. Peter oscillates between despising her and fantasizing about saving her from a burning building so she will be eternally grateful to him and maybe even kiss him. Peter is thrilled to be her partner for the term project. School lets out. Petyer walks Mary Jane out to the parking lot. Flash comes zipping up in his Porche to pick her up. In an awkward moment of condescending generosity, Mary Jane invites Peter to go with them, to Flash's house, to play tennis and swim in the pool. Peter declines... he has an honors-student science seminar he's going to at a nearby university. Anyway... he 6 doesn't want her to see his pale skinny body next to Flash the stud. McCreery make some offhand but cutting remark about Peter, then some of Flash's jock friends get into it... mocking him as well. Peter walks away, humiliated. LATER, at the seminar... Peter is touring the genetics lab of the university he hopes to attend if he can get a scholarship. The lab has one of the nation's leading research programs on recombinant DNA and gene therapy. As the tour moves though the lab complex they are able to get a glimpse of the restricted area where some of the more advanced research is done, through sealed glass doors. The professor shows them video monitors which show the images of bio-isolation flasks where genetic experiments are done on fruit flies. He says they are "using synthesized transfer-RNA to recode the genome of the fruitfly... transferring genetic information from one species of fly to another." He points to the monitors, saying, "You can see the ten mutagenically activated flies on the left, the ten control. flies on the right... " Peter mentions that he only sees ine flies on the left. While the scientist is counting, the camera moves to a high corner of the room. Caught in a spider's web, near an air duct, is the tenth fly. The spider approaches the struggling fly and begins to dine. Rack focus back to the professor... as he continues the lecture. They move on. Peter asks if he can take some photographs for his school paper. The group moves on, leaving him behind. The tiny spider drops down form above on a nearly invisible thread. Peter, below, is oblivious, as the arachnid descends. It lands on his hand as he is taking his last shot. He feels a stinging pain and sees the spider. He smashes it. Stands rubbing his hand. The hurries after the group. 7 Peter on the subway on the way home. He is rubbing his hand which is red and swollen. He is perspiring and feels faint. His lips are dry. By the time Peter gets gome, his vision is blurry. He goes straight to bed... avoiding Aunt May. He pulls off his clothes and staggers toward the bed, but collapses on the floor. He is wracked by a convulsive tremor, like a seizure. He is plunged into a psycotrepic state... an abyss of dark visions which yawns beneath him. He falls into the maelstrom, barraged by hallucinatory manifestations. Disturbing images of webs... from a POV as if crawling over them. Glistening eyes in the dark. Sudden predatory lunges. Prey struggling hopelessly to escape. A David Lynch bio-horror montage of spiderworld. Shadowy images of rooftops... crawling over buildings and fences. Leaping through the dark air... Peter awakens in the sunlight. He opens his eyes, relieved to be out of the nightmare. That it was just a dream. He blinks, looking around and screams. He is about 80 feet up a high- tension tower... wearing onlu his underwear. Below him, morning traffic moves along the street. Nobody looks up. CUT TO PETER sneaking along a fence, trying not to be seen. He hides in the bushes as two girls from his class go by. Deeply embarassed and confused, Peter makes it back to his house. He slips inside and gets ready for school. He is pale and shakey. He rushes past Aunt May and Uncle Benjamin, saying he is late. He goes outside, around the house, and climbs into a basement window. He goes to a dark corner and huddles there, shaking. His teeth are chattering. He hugs his knees to his chest and drifts into semi-consciousness. His eyes fall on something moving in a ray of sunlight coming in the window. It is a spider, descending on a single silken strand. To Peter it is like a heavenly vision, the tiny figure filling his entire consciousness in some sort of hallucinatory magnification. The morning sun backlights it and it seems ti glow with a golden radience. It is like some kind of divine 8 messenger, waving its legse slowly as if trying to tell him something. He is rivited by it, hypnotized by its otherworldly beauty and grace. Peter comes in the front door of the house after dark. He passes the living room, telling his Aunt and Uncle that he has to study. They ask him if he is okay. He says sure, fine. Peter looks in the bathroom mirror. He looks normal. He looks at his hands. They have stopped shaking. It appears to be over, whatever it was. He rubs his wrists, unconsciously. Rubbing his thumbs over the insides of his wrists. They hurt but who knows why. He notices suddenly that he can see perfectly. But that he is not wearing his glasses. He rushes into the bedroom and puts them on... the world goes fuzzy. He throws them across the room. Rubs his eyes. Wow! The poison cured his myopia. Cool. Peter goes to bed, exhausted by his ordeal. He sleeps soundly. The spider dream comes again. This time rather that a dark, roaring horror of confusing, disjointed images... it is more refined. An aerial ballet of eerie grace... the weaving of an orb- web from the spider's point of view. Shimmering geometry in cold black space. THE NEXT DAY. Tight on Peter as he wakes up. He opens his eyes cautiously. Not knowing what to expect. PULL BACK to reveal that he is still in bed. All is normal. He breaths a sigh of relief. In fact... he feels pretty good. Lots of energy. He pulls back the covers and... Something is causing the sheet to stick to him. He lifts it, revealing a stick, white mass completely covering him, gluing him to his bedding. It is some silky substance webbing him into the covers. He cries out in dismay... struggling to free himself from the gluey strands. Where did it come form? He notices his wrists... They are oozing a pearlescent white fluid from almost invisible slits about a quarter of an inch long. He pushes on the skin next to one of the slits and... a dark shape, the size and color of 9 a rose-thorn... emerges from beneath the skin. It shoots a jet of liquid silk into his face. Peter screams at the top of his lungs. Aunt May comes to the door. "Peter, are you alright?" "Yes", he answers, nervously. "I'm... fine, Aunt May. I was just... uh... practicing for a school play." Aunt May says she's so happy that he's getting into other activites. He gets out of bed and pulls the silky webbing off himself, realizing how strong the stuff is. He looks again at the horrifying "spinnerets" on his wrists. He is hyperventilating... freaking out. Like the guy in Kafka's Metamorphosis, he has woken up to find out he is a bug. Peter bangs out the back door of his house. He starts to run. Anywhere. Trying to get away from himself. Away from what is happening to him. He runs and runs in a blind frenzy, not realizing how fast he is going. Peter shoots through the trees. He bursts out into a street... Right in front of a speeding delivery truck. Peter leaps. The truck roars on... horn honking. Peter realizes he is twenty feet above the ground. He yells in terror. He is sticking to the side of a perfectly smooth building, by his palms, two stories up. Like a cat, stuck in a tree, he doesn't know how to get down. A kid rides by on a bike... Hey! Peter yells. Kid! Call 911! The kid looks at him and rides off fast. Peter gingerly pulls one palm loose... then loses traction and falls- Landing with perfect catlike grace on his feet and hands. He stands unsteadily. What is going on? His body is changing. Where will stop? He tests his arms and legs, feeling the strange energy pulsing through his muscles. 10 SEVERAL SCENES FOLLOW, of Peter realizing his new physical powers... strength and agility. His horror begins to turn to exhiliration as he finds himself capable of things he never dreamed of. He finds his skinny body suddenly more muscular, man-like. But beyond that he has inhuman power in his muscles... he picks up the back end of a small car by its bumper. I he dreaming? He finds a position of his hand which seems to trip the spinneret in his wrist. Hand bent back 90 degrees, index and pinky finger extended. The fluid jets out under pressure like a sot from a squirt gun, instantly hardening into a strand tougher than nylon. He tests it... can't break it. He even finds that it will support his weight. He realizes it is spider silk. Peter shoots some up to a tree limb and hangs from it. Starts swinging back and forth... yelling with the thrill of it. CUT TO Peter at school, with his sleeves pulled down... nervously looking around. Nobody notices him. He realizes that even though the most profound change imaginable has happened to him, no one else knows... or needs to know. Which is good... because he's already enough of a misfit. No point letting them know he's a complete freak. In biology class he tells the teacher he wants to do the term project on spiders. Mary Jane is aghast. She thinks they're revolting. Peter just wants to know more about them. Because he wants to know more about himself. But he can't exactly tell her that. Peter, in a junkyard after school. After making sure no-one is around, he practices shooting silk. MONTAGE of him learning to control the flow,, the diameter, the dispersion etc. like a real spider does. We see him practicing web-making. Screwing up. Getting more accurate. Then gunslinger moves, shooting the stuff around. Nailing a pop can in mid-air. Cut to long-shot... the area completely covered in webs. A total mess. Cut to him drinking half a gallon of milk. Eating voraciously. Replacing the protein he has used up. His aunt is pleased with his appetite.