One of my favorite facets of moviemaking is hearing stories of the “could have been’s” and “almost’s”; like Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones or Stuart Townsend in The Lord of the Rings. Today we’ve got a pretty cool “could have been” by way of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. The movie was a ginormous hit when it opened in 2002, landing the highest grossing opening weekend of all-time ($114 million seems almost quaint now). Willem Dafoe’s portrayal of the Green Goblin was central to the movie working as a whole, and an early test for how Raimi planned to portray the classic villain has now come to light. It’s loads different than the final version, relying more heavily on makeup and prosthetics. It doesn't entirely fit in with the Spider-Man universe Raimi created over his three entries in the franchise, but it sure is neat. Hit the jump to see for yourself.

Here’s the video, courtesy of FX house Amalgamated Dynamics (via SHH):

For comparison, here’s Dafoe in the finished film:

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Image via Sony