Spider-Man in film

Spider-Man, a superhero character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko for comic books published by Marvel Comics, has appeared in film since CBS's 1977 television film pilot, for the program The Amazing Spider-Man. Marvel Comics pursued plans for a feature film in the 1980s in a tumultuous development process that involved multiple directors, writers, and financiers. After protracted litigation over the Spider-Man copyrights, Sony Pictures and its subsidiary Columbia obtained the film rights for $7 million from Marvel in 1999. Beginning in the 2000s, Columbia developed a film trilogy starring Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, which includes Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007).