Within the barely extra area of interest corners of superhero fandom, a phrase has been making the rounds for the final couple of years: “Spider-Man: Lotus.” To the unfamiliar, it’s a compelling sufficient title. To anybody that’s performed some studying, it’s more and more a stone-cold bummer.
Spider-Man: Lotus is a not-for-profit live-action fan movie dreamt up by a YouTuber named Gavin J. Konop. Numerous individuals make fan movies, and many individuals like Spider-Man — even supposing the webhead’s clearly a menace to the nice residents of New York — so discovering out about considered one of 1,000,000 completely different newbie productions that includes a child in a onesie swinging from fishing line actually shouldn’t be one thing that will get you rolling off the bed within the morning.
What separated this mission from the remainder of the pack was that — in opposition to all odds — it appeared fairly good. A psychologically pushed drama, it sees celebrated bug chew sufferer Peter Parker struggling within the days after the dying of Gwen Stacy whereas befriending a terminally in poor health youngster. The unique trailer for Spider-Man: Lotus sits at 2.7 million views on YouTube a pair months shy of its two-year anniversary. Whereas it’s mild on motion and heavy on a shot of a grown man strolling via an precise cemetery in a unitard — little question elevating lots of questions at some grandpa’s wake later within the day — the costuming is fairly on-point. It promised a extra introspective Spider-Man story about loss and trauma, and the couple of results photographs bump proper up in opposition to studio-quality. In case you like betting on an underdog story, and Spider-Man followers are inclined to, this felt like a superb place to place your chips. To that finish, an IndieGoGo launched in January of 2021 introduced in $112,000 for the mission.
So then what occurred to Spider-Man: Lotus was…
In June of 2022, Twitter obtained wind of a collection of leaked messages despatched by the movie’s star — Warden Wayne — that includes the form of verbal method to race normally reserved for the unhealthy guys in a Quentin Tarantino film. Then got here leaked messages from Konop, additionally that includes ableist and racist rhetoric. Then got here accusations that Konop hadn’t paid particular results contractors for his or her work, and that different actors on the mission had behaved inexcusably. The discharge of Spider-Man: Lotus was pushed again as increasingly more accusations of toxicity surfaced. It appeared prefer it may be doomed to the identical destiny of most bold fan movies: sitting, unwatched on a thumb drive someplace, doomed to finally get misplaced behind a desk drawer.
However then Konop revealed to Twitter that the film would hit YouTube on Aug. 10, 2023. We’re certain the debut will move with out controversy.