Long lost 'Spider-Man' Twin Towers teaser restored in 4K

An incredibly rare teaser trailer for Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man has been restored to its former glory and posted online in 4K definition.

The teaser, which features footage that doesn’t appear in the final film, is famous for featuring the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center before the two skyscrapers were destroyed in the terror attacks of 9/11.

Debuting ahead of A Knight’s Tale, the teaser was shown in cinemas a full 12 months before Spider-Man landed in summer 2002, while the Twin Towers still loomed over New York.

It showed Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man catching a gang of criminals fleeing a robbery in a helicopter, using a web spun between the North and South towers. It was shot by Sony Pictures specifically for the teaser and was never intended to feature in the finished film.

The teaser has been available to watch online for years, but only in very poor quality up to now. Watch the newly restored trailer below.

Sony Pictures quickly withdrew the trailer from circulation in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks, along with a teaser poster for the film which featured a reflection of the Towers in a close up of Spider-Man’s mask. A shot of the WTC was also removed from the film, while two patriotic new scenes were added in response to the attack.

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The restored trailer has been posted online by a YouTuber who goes by the name of Yoshi Killer2S. In a post on Reddit, they explain that they had the trailer “scanned from a 35mm print in 4K” and then colour-corrected it to fix the grading.

The finished product is incredible and offers a look at the teaser that many thought had been lost to time for all these years.

The September 11, 2001 attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage.

In the wake of the event, many Hollywood studios wrestled with the dilemma of how to respond to the loss of the towers that were due to feature in their upcoming projects.

Paramount Pictures used VFX to delete the Twin Towers from background shots of Zoolander which landed in cinemas just weeks after the attacks. 2002’s Men In Black II - another Sony picture - underwent reshoots to change the film’s ending from taking place atop the WTC to the Statue of Liberty. Sony also took the decision to erase the Twin Towers from background shots of 2002’s Stuart Little 2.

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Films delayed in response to the attack due to their content include View From The Top, Collateral Damage, Training Day, The Time Machine and Big Trouble.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is in cinemas now. Like the 2002 film, the trailer for Far From Home features a scene that didn’t make it into the movie.