Spider-Man's look in the Raimi trilogy is the definition of iconic. It's sleek, it's stylish, it's (mostly) faithful to the source, and it introduced a whole generation to the webhead and has cemented itself as one of the definitive looks for the hero in many people's hearts.
However, it wasn't always like this. Like most adaptations, the look of Raimi's Spider-Man and its villain, the Green Goblin, underwent numerous revisions before ultimately becoming what we recognize today. In this article, we'll go over some of the more notable concepts considered during the development of Spider-Man (2002).
Teves Design Concept Art
Starting off with perhaps one of the weirder ideas pitched during development, here we have a slightly uncanny redesign for the ol' webhead. All the staples are there; the red and blue colorway, the webbing, the lenses and logo, the whole nine yards. Yet there's something... off about them. The red and blue blend into one another rather than being explicitly separated, the lenses are unusually transparent, the web pattern covers the entire body rather than just the red parts... and his feet are visible.
Judging from this design alone, it's very clear that from the get-go that Raimi and his team wanted to stick to the basics. They weren't trying to reinvent the wheel, or do something dramatically different. They wanted to take regular old Spider-Man, and doll him up just a little for the big screen. It's a commendable effort, even if it took a couple of tries to get it right.
Spider-Man... helmet?
Keeping with the weirder ideas tossed around in the early stages, we've got this unusual take on Spider-Man's mask which envisions it not as a mask, but as a resin helmet?
The art suggests that it would've been made from some mildly transparent hard polymer which would show some of Peter's facial gestures. It's certainly an interesting pitch, but one I'm personally glad didn't make it into the film. Could you imagine Spider-Man's classic red and blue NOT being made of spandex fabric? I sure can't.
Alex Ross Redesign
Now we're reaching "almost made it into the movie" territory. Alex Ross' suit design is easily the most well-known out of all the pitches for this first movie, and for good reason. Not only was it designed by one of the greatest comic book artists out there, but it's also ain incredibly striking suit!
Stripping Spider-Man down to such a minimalist look for his first appearance in a hollywood blockbuster was a bold pitch by Ross, but upon closer inspection one can see where he's coming from. Switching the blue to black makes the red pop considerably more, while also calling back to his original appearance, illustrated by Steve Ditko. The chest symbol is also greatly accentuated, which may not be to everyone's taste, but I personally enjoy it.
Although it ultimately didn't make the cut, the Ross suit was manufactured and featured in test footage alongside a more faithful proto suit which we'll see in a bit. Not only that, but the suit was included into the movie's tie-in game as an costume which you unlocked once you've beaten the story mode. The legacy of this would-be suit doesn't end there, as years down the line, various comic artists would take cues from Ross for their own redesigns, with the most obvious being Superior Spider-Man. Not bad for a suit that never was.
Proto Suit
Had the design for Spider-Man's suit not been refined further, this is likely what we would've gotten. It was featured briefly in the 2001 E3 trailer as well as in the Sizzle Reel of that same year (both of which you can see over in the Extras section!). This design is faithful to the comics of the era, having a mild resemblance to the work of artist Mark Bagley, which was the lead artist for Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man run at the time. It seems that aside from taking a few story elements from that comic run to streamline the plot, Raimi was considering taking heavy cues from the run's Spider-Man design as well.
I've got to say that it looks pretty cool, but it's hard to imagine a world where people think of THIS when they think of Raimi's Spider-Man.
BONUS
Web Shooters
Ending the article with another pretty well-known piece of scrapped concepts is the proposed web shooters. As shown in the screenshots and in the 2001 footage, Spider-Man's signature web shooters almost made it into the film. It's never been definitively confirmed WHY they were cut, especially so late into production, but there have been a few answers floating around over the years
The one reason I could verify was from the film's writer, David Koepp. David states that the idea for organic webshooters actually came from James Cameron. Cameron had a wild pitch for a Spider-Man movie in the 90s that never panned out, but a few of the ideas he tossed around ended up making their way into Raimi's take on the webslinger. One such idea was that of organic webbing, which Koepp quite liked, as he told IGN.