Spider-Man is about to make his solo debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and by all accounts, it's a glorious homecoming.

This is a relief because the web-slinger's track record has been hit and miss in Hollywood, with most fans agreeing that Spider-Man 2 is his only truly definitive outing prior to Tom Holland's spandex days.

Indeed, the other two Tobey Maguire movies don't hold up particularly well by modern standards, bogged down by ropey CGI among other issues, while the Andrew Garfield era is destined to become a forgotten chapter in the Spidey's history.

But for every botched attempt at a Spider-Man film, two others have been hit with the bug repellent long before the actors even made it in front of the cameras.

Movie studios first expressed interest in bringing the wall-crawler to cinema in the early 1980s, and he endured a troubled journey to his first big-screen outing in 2002.

Although Spider-Man films are easier for Hollywood to pull off these days, there's at least one movie from every era of his celluloid lifecycle which never saw the light of day...