SPIDER-MAN

             SPIDER-MAN  

                         Scriptment

                             BY

                       JAMES CAMERON

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 lights 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... cross-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... Manhattan.  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.

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 like corpuscles of light

through the circulatory system of the city.

                          FIGURE (V.O.)

          It all looks so... 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 its variegated glory... from stockbrokers to

hookers, priests to junkies.

A CORNER NEWSSTAND.  Pushing in on a stack of Newsweek.

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 the roof of the newsstand.  The news-guy whirls as

the arm slaps two bucks on the counter and grabs a

Newsweek.

The owner 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

          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.

                          SPIDERMAN (V.O.)

          How can I expect them to get it.  I don't

          even get it.  I do wish they'd at least

          get my name right.  It's Spider Man... not

          The Spider Man.  Jeez.  Boneheads.  I need

          a better publicist.

He rips the magazine easily in half, then in quarters,

then in eights... somewhere 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 thy knew

          Spiderman wasn't even a man.  Just a kid

          named...

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

six.  He woke up one day without a family.  Somehow he

always felt guilty that they went away.  As if he had done

something wrong.  His 17 year 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.

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 ostracized 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 to 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 the 17 year-old's sense that he knows everything

about the world, and can see so clearly all the things

that are wrong with it.  In fact he is very insulated and

knows almost nothing about human nature in all its

complexity.  He doesn't even understand 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 rut.  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...

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, though she doesn't

seem to know he exists.  The teacher tells them to pair up

for term science projects and to Peter's surprise Mary

Jane comes all the way over to him and asks to be his

partner.

Mary Jane needs at least an 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 gymnastic team.  He

is also a tennis snob and drives a Porsche.  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.  Peter walks Mary Jane out of the parking

lot.  Flash comes zipping up in his Porsche 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 doesn't want her to see

his pale skinny body next to Flash the stud.