In 1977, the pilot episode of The Amazing Spider-Man television series was released by Columbia Pictures as a feature film outside of the United States. In 1978 episodes from the television series were re-edited and released outside of the United States as a feature film titled Spider-Man Strikes Back. In 1979, a film made using the same method was released as Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge. The disappointing performance of 1983's Superman III made comic book adaptations low priority in Hollywood, though the comic industry itself thrived.In 1985, after a brief option on Spider-Man by Roger Corman expired.Marvel Comics optioned the property to Cannon Films. Cannon chiefs Menahem Golan and his cousin Yoram Globus agreed to pay Marvel Comics $225,000 over the five-year option period plus a percentage of the film’s revenues The rights would revert to Marvel if a film was not made by April 1990then preparing both Invaders From Mars and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, was mooted as director. Golan and Globus misunderstood the concept of the character ("They thought it was like The Wolf Man", said director Joseph Zito) and instructed writer Leslie Stevens, creator of The Outer Limits, to write a treatment .reflecting their misconception. In Stevens’ story, a corporate scientist intentionally subjects ID-badge photographer Peter Parker to radioactive bombardment, transforming him into a hairy, suicidal, eight-armed monster. The human tarantula refuses to join the scientist’s new master-race of mutants, battling a succession of mutations kept in a basement laboratory.Unhappy with the debasement of his comic book creation, Marvel’s Stan Lee pushed for a new story and screenplay, written for Cannon by Ted Newsom and John Brancato.[8] The variation on the origin story had Otto Octavius as a teacher and mentor to a college-age Peter Parker. The cyclotron accident which "creates" Spider-Man also deforms the scientist into Doctor Octopus and results in his mad pursuit of proof of the Fifth Force. Ock reconstructs his cyclotron and causes electromagnetic abnormalities, anti-gravity effects, and bilocation which threatens to engulf New York and the world. Joseph Zito, who had directed Cannon’s successful Chuck Norris film Invasion USA, replaced Tobe Hooper.[9] The new director hired Barney Cohen to rewrite the script. Cohen, creator of TV's Sabrina the Teenage Witch an