Tons of Spider-Man movies have been made throughout the last three decades, starting with Sam Raimi’s 2002 film, leading up to the upcoming 2026 entry, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The story of the web-slinging hero’s world has been told in three different mainline movie series, the animated Spider-Verse saga, and Sony’s Spider-Man expanded universe movies. While many characters have been adapted flawlessly, tons of beloved Spider-Man icons have slipped through the cracks.
Peter Parker has been adapted in all kinds of different ways, and so have many of his most iconic villains. However, many smaller Spider-Man characters haven’t had this luxury. This has led to them getting poorly adapted, with them straying far from the iterations that fans of the comics have grown to love. So, here are the 10 least accurate Spider-Man characters in Marvel movies.
Ben Reilly, aka the Scarlet Spider, finally appeared in film form in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. However, Ben is basically a parody of himself here. The whole joke is about how edgy the character is, and while he looks like Scarlet Spider, he isn’t a proper adaptation.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars in Kraven the Hunter as the titular character, although he is very different. Although his appearance is the same, movie Kraven gets his powers after being attacked by a lion and saved by a potion from Calypso. He then hunts down his father’s criminal organization, rather than hunting down the Earth’s greatest prey.
Jared Leto brought the Living Vampire to the big screen in 2022’s Morbius, one of the most critically panned movies in the Spider-Man franchise. In the movie, his vampiric appearance only comes out when he uses his powers, whereas it is almost permanent in the comics. In the movie, Morbius has powers of eco-location, and he is more of a superhero than a villain.
Mary Jane Watson has been adapted multiple times in Spider-Man movies, most notably in the MCU and in Sam Raimi’s movies. Zendaya’s incarnation of the character is a very loose adaptation, with the only real connection being that her initials are MJ and she is a love interest for Peter. Her name in these movies is Michelle Jones Watson, and her personality is incredibly different.
Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane looks and fulfills the role of the comic book character, but her personality is pretty different as well. This MJ isn’t as fiery or free-spirited as she is in the source material. She is constantly being kidnapped and doesn’t have the agency that the character normally has, with her main goal being her acting career.
Despite being the focus of her movie, Madame Web is surprisingly inaccurate to her comic book counterpart. In the comics, Madame Web is a blind, elderly lady who is often seen sitting on a massive spider-themed throne. Her vision impairment comes from myasthenia gravis, and her throne is a life support system. She is also notably a mutant in the comics.
In Madame Web, she isn’t a mutant, she isn’t blind, and she isn’t old. Instead, Dakota Johnson’s character is a young woman who discovers that she has precognitive powers. The film is an origin story, and she does become blind after an injury near the end of the film. However, she doesn’t look or act like her comic book counterpart at all.
In Madame Web, Ezekiel Sims is a villain, and that is about as far as the similarities go. In the comics, Ezekiel is an older man with white hair who is typically seen wearing a business suit. When he was younger, he went to the Amazon and participated in a ritual that gave him powers similar to Spider-Man. When Spider-Man emerged, he deduced that Spider-Man was part of a supernatural food chain thanks to his connection to the spider totem. He then attempts to get Spider-Man killed in his place in order to fulfill a punishment for Ezekiel’s own powers.
In the movie, basically none of this is here. Tahar Rahim’s Ezekiel got his powers from a spider bite he received while in the Amazon looking for a spider with healing properties. Ezekiel then gets a vision of himself being killed by several Spider heroes, causing him to hunt them down.
Although Harry Osborn typically fills the role of Peter Parker’s best friend, the MCU went in a different direction, giving Peter a friend in the form of Ned Leeds. Jacob Batalon’s character is a nerdy high-school best friend of Peter, with him eventually becoming Peter’s “guy in the chair.” He later becomes a wizard in Spider-Man: No Way Home, where he uses a Sling Ring to open portals for the other Peter Parkers.
This is barely what Ned is like in the comics. There, Ned is typically a co-worker of Peter’s at the Daily Bugle. He is also married to Betty Brant, although the characters do have a slight romance in the MCU. Later, Ned becomes the Hobgoblin, a story that has yet to be adapted in the MCU.
The Amazing Spider-Man series is home to several poorly adapted Spider-Man villains, and Electro is one of the worst. Typically, Maxwell Dillon is a lineman who gets his powers after being struck by lightning. In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, however, Jamie Foxx’s iteration is a loser employee of Oscorp who is obsessed with Spider-Man. He falls into a tank of electric eels, where he gains his powers, and then decides to become a criminal after Spider-Man forgets his birthday.
Rather than sporting the yellow mask and green tights, The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s Electro is turned completely blue, with him looking like Dr. Manhattan. He wears a hoodie, and his electricity has the odd side effect of sounding like dubstep. Luckily, Foxx got a chance to play a better iteration of Electro in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Venom first appeared in film in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. Although this Venom wasn’t the most acclaimed villain in the series, he was still fairly accurate to the character’s comic book counterpart. However, things get very different in Sony’s Venom movie series. There, Tom Hardy plays the character, with him portraying the Lethal Protector incarnation of the character more than the villainous one.
There are two big problems with this Venom. Firstly, the character is incredibly comedic. Eddie Brock and Venom are both incredibly silly, with them constantly making jokes throughout the trilogy. Venom is typically more serious, so it was strange that the Sony movies took this direction. The second is that Venom has no connection to Spider-Man. Venom is often defined by his rivalry with Spider-Man, and without Spider-Man, he has no webs, no logo, and no rival.
Out of all of the Spider-Man characters who have appeared in movies, Rhino is the one who has suffered the worst adaptation. The character has primarily been adapted twice, with the more accurate adaptation appearing in Kraven the Hunter. However, Paul Giamatti’s version of the character in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is Rhino’s first and worst film adaptation.
Giamatti’s version of Rhino foregoes the character’s typical experimental procedure and mutated skin, with him instead using a rhino-themed mech suit. However, the mech suit hardly looks like a rhino, outside of the horns on top. He also uses machine guns far more than his physicality, making him barely like the character at all. Rhino is also completely played as a comedic relief character and barely has a role in the story, somehow making him even more disappointing.
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