Why was the spider removed from the Arachnophobia movie poster?

September 25, 2009 3:26 PM

Why was the spider removed from the movie poster for Arachnophobia between the theatrical release and the video release?

When this movie came out in 1990, I remember the movie trailers and promo material having a single spider dangling in front of the moon. Apparently Wikipedia confirms this. But when the video came out, and for all promo material after, the spider was removed as I've found for reference here.

I vaguely remember there being some interesting story about why this happened, maybe a lawsuit or something, but I can't seem to find any reference to this fact.

It seems like everybody just overlooks the fact that a picture of the full moon doesn't really have anything to do with spiders.

Does anybody have any info about why specifically the video cover got changed?

posted by toomanyplugs to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

The only reference I can find is this: "MOVIE TRIVIA: In 1990, filmmaker Frank Marshall directed the film “Arachnophobia” that played on the audience’s fear of spiders. In fact, the original poster of "Arachnophobia" contained the picture of a spider over the moon, but was later removed due to complaints." - from this article. Not sure what kind of complaints - from arachnophobes, maybe?
posted by Addlepated at 12:32 PM on September 26, 2009

You might try asking over in the IMDB Arachnophobia forum. My uneducated guess would be a Spider-Man / Marvel run-in?
posted by misterbrandt at 6:26 PM on September 26, 2009

I do remember a spider-poster controversy, but I always thought it was about "Eight Legged Freaks." (People got freaked out by the giant hairy spiders on billboards.) Perhaps the "Arachnophobia" spider-removal had something to do with the Amblin Entertainment logo, which features ET on a bike silhouetted against a very similar moon.
posted by turducken at 1:03 AM on September 27, 2009