Tom Cruise and James Cameron Had Hilarious Roles Cut From ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’

There was seemingly no end to the sheer amount of stars who appeared in Sony’s Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. While the main cast included the likes of Brian Tyree Henry, Jake Johnson, John Mulaney, Hailee Steinfeld, Shameik Moore, Mahershala Ali, Nicolas Cage and others, there were some big names that were kept secret until the movie was out in theaters. Actors like Chris Pine and Oscar Isaac were major surprises for audiences when the film finally made it’s debut in December.

Little did we all know, the two of the biggest names that were set to appear in the project were actually cut during the film’s production. Tom Cruise was going to voice a role in Spider-Verse, as was Titanic and Terminator 2 director James Cameron.

While speaking to /Film about the home release of Spider-Verse, directors Rodney Rothman, Peter Ramsey, and Bob Persichetti were asked about the special features, particularly the “Alternate Universe Mode” which features a 2.5 hour cut of the film, complete with many of the alternate and deleted scenes. It’s in this feature that fans will get a glimpse at the characters Cruise and Cameron were supposed to play.

“There’s a lot of stuff to that version, stuff that we took out of the movie for good reasons, but that give you a window into the creative process behind the years that were spent on the movie,” Rothman said. “So an example of stuff they are talking about… There’s a line from Doc Ock that’s a very direct reference to Doc Ock’s most famous line in Spider-Man 2. Is the Tom Cruise stuff in the alternate universe version? So there was a whole period of time where Miles rather than learning about being Spider-man from a comic book learned it from watching the films. There was a movie version of a movie about Spider-Man in Miles universe about the real person Spider-Man, but it was a James Cameron directed movie with Tom Cruise as Spidey. Yes. Spidey. And it was James Cameron and Spidey and Tom Cruise on the audio.”

Cruise was going to play a fictional actor in the film named Todd Crews, who starred as Spider-Man in a fictional movie in that universe. Cameron was portraying the director of the film who was providing an audio commentary track on the Blu-ray. In this alternate version of the story, Miles learned how to be Spider-Man from the DVD that Ganke showed him, rather than by himself with comic books.

If you pick up a copy of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which is available now on Digital HD, you’ll be able to check out the scene featuring Cruise in the “Alternate Universe Mode.” The Blu-ray will arrive on shelves on March 19th.

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