Fans Hoping to Revive Spectacular Spider-Man With Online Campaign

Fans are banding together to create a #ReleaseTheSnyderCut-style day of hashtag activism in the [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Fans are banding together to create a #ReleaseTheSnyderCut-style day of hashtag activism in the hopes of bringing back the short-lived but much-loved Spectacular Spider-Man animated series. Usually the "Save" a show hashtag is reserved for series on the bubble, or in danger of being imminently cancelled. In the current case, it's being used to "save" a show that's been gone for more than a decade -- but in the current context, maybe that's not so crazy. After all, it isn't just the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League on HBO Max in March that makes a revival campaign for a long-cancelled show feel plausible.

First of all, Marvel and DC are both embracing a multiversal approach to their movies and TV shows that seems likely to open doors previously thought closed. We're also at a point in popular culture where franchises from Halloween to Bill and Ted are revisiting the oldies, so to speak, and continuing the story from years or decades past.

Spectacular Spider-Man ran for two seasons in 2008 and 2009, and centered on a teenage Peter Parker. The series was part of the Kids WB/The CW changeover, and like many other shows, didn't survive long after the change happened. Its writing and performances were always praised by fans, with a number of online reviewers calling it the best Marvel cartoon ever made in hindsight. It wasn't just the CW changeover that led to the end of the series; a third season was initially planned, the series was cancelled before production could begin due to a rights dispute between Disney (who purchased Marvel during the show's run) and Sony Pictures Television (who created the series).

You can see a tweet in support of next Saturday's tweet storm below.

The Spectacular Spider-Man is the latest in a series of projects that fans have tried to get off the ground, or revived, since the success of the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement. Among them are campaigns to get David Ayer's director's cut of Suicide Squad a commercial release, as well as those who hope to get an extended director's cut of Batman Forever, reportedly sitting in Warner Bros.' archives, released on HBO Max so that fans can see a version of what the late Joel Schumacher had in mind when he took over the blockbuster Batman franchise film Tim Burton following the 1991 release of Batman Returns.

You can buy the existing seasons of Spectacular Spider-Man on various streaming video on demand services.

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