This year marks the 15th anniversary of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man which in 2002 helped the superhero genre be reborn (along with Blade and X-Men) after the critical and financial failure of Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin. Raimi, a boyhood fan of the character, brought the webslinger to life in a big way, with the film the first blockbuster to gross over $100million in its opening weekend.

Spider-Man 2 quickly followed in 2004 (arguably the better film and one of the genre’s greatest sequels) and, ten years ago, a third movie was released which was the highest grosser of the trilogy ($890million worldwide). But whereas the first two were big successes with fans and critics alike, there was something amiss with part three. The producers wanted to include the famous symbiote storyline to the film and the introduction of Venom, but director Raimi was against the idea. In the end, Raimi reluctantly agreed and the film is a bit of a mess as was the interpretation of the character and everything seems rushed and compromised.

Spider-Man 3 - Editor's Cut

In fact, over the years many fans have collected information and photos from the set of the film which shows many scenes being shot that are not in the film (more scenes with Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, Venom and the black suit elements with Tobey Maguire’s hero) and in recent weeks, a new Blu-ray boxset for the five Spider-Man films has been announced and an “editor’s cut” of the film is included.

SEE ALSO: Final Spider-Man: Homecoming trailers arrive

Indeed, this weekend saw the digital release of the new version and some fans managed to get hold of a copy of the new version and post some reviews online. ComicBook.com says some Reddit users have posted their thoughts online and while it is a slightly different version, many of the deleted scenes that have never been seen are not included and that all the “greatest hits” (Peter Parker dancing, strutting etc) are still part of the film.

While the end result is a bit of a mess, it will always be something of a fans dream to see Raimi’s original vision for the film before the theatrical version was made. Sadly, we may never see it.

The new Spider-Man collection arrives in the UK on June 26th in a 7-disc Blu-ray set.
The heroes new adventure, Spider-Man: Homecoming, is released on July 7th.