There are numerous sliding doors moments in Hollywood that, had they actually happened, would have fractured the space-time continuum like a DeLorean hitting potholes at 88mph. Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones, Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly, Sean Connery as Gandalf, Bill Murray as a distinctly sardonic Batman. And yet, if there has ever been a more deliciously unhinged alternate timeline than Nicolas Cage as the Green Goblin/Norman Osborn in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man from 2002, it has probably already been confiscated by the time police for crimes against narrative stability.
This is not the first time we’ve heard about Cage’s potential involvement in the film - Entertainment Weekly’s feature from 24 years ago noted that Cage, John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe (who eventually got the role) were all “up for the Green Goblin”. But it appears to be the first time Cage himself has spoken about it in any detail. While promoting the new series Spider-Noir, Cage told Variety: “Sam and I had a great lunch, and I did say during the lunch, ‘Listen: whoever plays Spider-Man, let them do one scene where they’re crawling around like a spider when they’re alone,’ and it didn’t happen … He wanted me to do the Green Goblin. I liked the idea of Sam Raimi, because of Evil Dead 1 and 2, and I wanted to work with him.”
