5 Crazy Spider-Man Rip-Offs: Turkish, Italian And Clothing-Free Versions

There has been a huge rush for advance ticket sales on Sony Group Corp.'s SONY "Spider-Man: No Way Home," which opens on Friday with the potential of setting a box office record for a COVID-19 pandemic-era release.

For those who are unable to secure tickets for the premiere weekend screenings, there are other Spider-Man films worth considering.

Admittedly, these are not official titles in the Spider-Man canon, but why let a little copyright infringement get in the way of an entertaining flick?

For your viewing pleasure, here is a quintet of Spider-Man rip-off films that even J. Jonah Jameson would love!

“Spider-Man” (1969): Between 1953 and 1969, Don Glut turned out 41 amateur films, often making unauthorized use of trademark-protected characters. “Spider-Man” was his final amateur work, with the 25-year-old Glut taking on the Peter Parker/Spider-Man role in a swift 12-minute offering that finds the heroic web-spinner in a battle of wits with Dr. Lightning, a villainous character created for this work.

Glut compensated for his obvious lack of a decent film budget with a surplus amount of goofy charm, not to mention the most brilliantly tactless line imaginable when Spider-Man informs his distressed damsel: “I’ve got bad news for you: Your father is dead. But you’re safe.”

“Spider-Man” had an unusual premiere screening — in the home of Monkees singer Michael Nesmith — and Glut would leave behind his amateur endeavors for a highly successful writing career that covered comic books, screenplays and the novelization of “The Empire Strikes Back.”

“3 Dev Adam, a.k.a. The Turkish Spider-Man” (1973): During the 1970s and early 1980s, Turkey’s film industry churned out a number of rip-off productions based on such diverse works as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Star Trek,” “Star Wars” and “E.T.” These films represented a triumph of enthusiasm over talent, with shoddy filmmaking offering a warped facsimile of the Hollywood classics.

In this romp, Spidey is the bad guy. He runs a crime ring that produces counterfeit money and annihilates anyone who tries to stop them. The good guys are Captain America (sort of) and his Brazilian girlfriend Julia, who team with the masked Mexican wrestler Santo to restore law and order.

The Turkish version of Spider-Man does not have any of the superpowers of his American inspiration, although he is able to clone himself. Alas, quantity doesn’t equal quality and the multiple versions of this arachnid-inspired evildoer winds up getting squashed.

“The Green Goblin’s Last Stand” (1992): In 1992, 20-year-old Baltimore-based Dan Poole shot a 50-minute fan film inspired by the Spider-Man comic book “The Night Gwen Stacy Died,” with goal of getting his work in front of James Cameron, who had been recently signed to shoot a Spider-Man film.

Poole’s film cost $400 and was mostly a cheapjack effort made with amateur actors. What made his work stand out was a series of dangerous stunts that Poole performed as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, including his swinging from ropes four stories off the ground with no protective netting below him.

Cameron never saw Poole’s film. The director’s staff sent it back with an explanation that he didn’t accept unsolicited work, but over time “The Green Goblin’s Last Stand” found a cult following through bootlegged copies distributed at comic book conventions. Poole would find a career niche as a stuntman and occasional filmmaker.

“Italian Spiderman” (2007): Australian student filmmaker Dario Russo created a 16mm film that pretended to be a trailer from a long-lost Italian action film from the late 1960s. The work created a viral sensation when it was uploaded on YouTube, and the South Australian Film Corporation provided Russo and his youthful collaborators with funding to expand the film.

In this version, Spider-Man is a fat, mustached, chain-smoking Italian who battles Captain Maximum, a mad genius bent on world domination. This Spider-Man rides a motorcycle, surfs, fires a gun indiscriminately and dismembers an assailant by karate chopping his arm from his body — yeah, this isn’t Peter Parker.

“Spider-Man XXX: A Porn Parody” (2011): If poor old Uncle Ben was still alive, he’d have a heart attack watching his nephew running amok in this piece of clothing-free cinema.

Electro and Wilson Fisk are the villains here while Peter finds himself carnally divided between Black Widow and Mary-Jane — the latter winds up in a threesome with Gwen Stacy and Flash Thompson. Even Aunt May gets into the act, with Dr. Octopus coming around to tickle her fancy. And you can imagine how Spidey’s upside-down kiss with Mary-Jane plays.

Clearly, there was a market for smutty superhero flicks: this film was a sequel to “Superman vs. Spider-Man XXX: An Axel Braun Parody,” also from 2012, and was followed up by three more appearances by the oversexed character in NSFW adventures.

Photo: The Turkish version of Spider-Man from the 1973 “3 Dev Adam,” courtesy of Cinema Crazed.