The new Spider-Man fan film, Spider-Man: Lotus, has finally been available to watch for free on YouTube. This has been a fan film that has been years in the making with a lot of discourse surrounding it. While some were excited to see a low budget Spider-Man project that aimed to put more emphasis on the human drama surrounding Peter Parker and him grieving over losing his loved ones, it has been overshadowed by the ENORMOUS amount of controversy surrounding the making of the picture along with the history surrounding the cast and crew attached to it.
I’ll admit that I’m someone who mostly stayed out of the discourse surrounding Spider-Man: Lotus while it was in production because I just wasn’t interested in it. However, after reading up on it in the past week, it makes me certainly wish I knew about all of that sooner. Even if I was someone that ending up really enjoying Spider-Man: Lotus (which I do not whatsoever), it was undoubtedly things that HAD to be brought to the forefront regardless of the film’s overall quality. Because of that, I want to discuss all of the drama behind the director, the actors, the making of this fan film, and how the overall film actually is. It’s important to address all of this and see why fan films like Spider-Man: Lotus are a perfect showcase of the dangers of letting fans become the filmmakers.
And I know there will be some folks out there that claim that people need to separate the artist from the art and judge the film as it’s own thing. However, when it comes to the circumstances with how this film was made and how the main people involved with it are quite frankly not good people, I just can’t look the other way this time. Even so, I promise I will talk about the film’s quality overall and why I don’t think it works whatsoever on it’s own merits. But, first, we have to discuss the controversy involving certain people attached to this well-funded project.
Warden Wayne
The first bit of controversy came off of the lead actor and co-write of Spider-Man: Lotus, Warden Wayne, after there were comments that made by him that surfaced on the internet that came across as incredibly racist. This came from Twitter user @Thnnder, who shared a handful of those bluntly racist comments that were made by Wayne through social media. I’m not gonna show them directly but it mostly came across as him using the N word over and over and over again in plain sight on Instagram.
Those image surfaced on the internet in June 2022 and it wasn’t long until Warden Wayne admitted to making those racist comments. He put the blame on his sheltered lifestyle and being part of a conservative household where racial slurs were “pushed” onto him. Wayne did take to Twitter (Btw, YES, I’m gonna keep calling it Twitter and not X! Take that, Musk!) to explain his actions but claimed in the end that he was willing to take responsibilities for those offensive comments and grow to become a better person. So, the fact that the lead actor already had a bad history behind him is not an encouraging sign at all for this film! First domino to fall!
And here is Wayne’s full response to the racist allegations, which he admitted was true!
However, Wayne’s past would unfortunately not be the only dark cloud that would hang over production of this fan film. The next one had to do with the main man behind the entire film himself, director/co-writer, Gavin J. Konop.
Gavin J. Konop
Konop had already been a controversial figure among the Spidey fanbase given his well-known contempt towards the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s version of Spider-Man and it’s director Jon Watts. Despite Jon Watts showing his support towards this project, Konop has actively gone out of his way on multiple occasions to insult the MCU’s spin on Spider-Man at every turn. It is believed that a big reason for this project’s very existence has to do in a response to Konop’s dislike towards Jon Watts’s take on the character, most notably his extremely negative reaction to Spider-Man: Far From Home, and as a means to “stick it” to him with the mindset that he seemingly knows the material better than Watts does. Konop did backtrack on that, claiming he has enormous respect towards Watts and was over the moon when he got a DM from him after the initial trailer for Lotus came out, despite not being a fan of his iteration of Spider-Man. However, there has been plenty of comments from Konop through social media about Watts and the quality of Spider-Man pictures made from the Sony and Marvel Studios partnership that give the indication of the smug, ego-filled mindset that was the cause for this project’s existence.
There was also the other notable controversy that surfaced the internet by Twitter user @BerkmanBoom, with screenshots of remarks that came across as racist, sexist, and homophobic along with specific recordings that leaked which were quite disgusting. Even though the original posts of those had been deleted, screenshots and recordings of it were already made and went into the public eye all throughout the internet. Again, I don’t want to share them but it was confirmed by Konop himself that at least some of them were in fact real. He claims that a big reason for those remarks had to do with that kind of vocabulary being allowed in middle school and high school along with refusing to grow into more maturity.
Berkmanboom however claimed that Konop was lying about his reasons. In a now-deleted post, he mentioned that “He was even going to help me make my own Spider-Man fan film. He was going to write and edit the whole project. He eventually started to get more followers and changed his platform to Gjkcentral and started to drop me. I had other friends, but no one who I felt understood me like Gavin.” He was afraid to come out at first due to potential backlash from Konop’s fans but felt compelled to after prior allegations of Konop using racist language came out. That eventually would lead to another anonymous source on Twitter to share a screen recording where Konop using another racial slur.
Konop did make a video where he tried to address all of this controversy surrounding him and the making of his film. Despite the apology, it didn’t come across as earnest to most of his fans, with most who contributed to crowdfunding Spider-Man: Lotus demanding refunds and no longer showing support to the project. So, not only is the main lead of this fan film had not so good history surrounding him but now the director as well. There goes another domino!
Here’s that video btw!
John Salandria
As if things couldn’t get any worse with the racist allegations, it was later revealed that the actor for Green Goblin had also been exposed for similar behavior. Derrick Woods, writer and director of a similar crowdfunded Spider-Man film that has yet to come out, released screenshots of what appeared to be a conversation between Wayne and Goblin actor, John Salandria. I also won’t show the screenshot but it basically came across as Saldandria using the same racist vocabulary that Wayne did and even go as far as to defend Konop for his behavior as well. There’s goes the third domino!
With now THREE of the biggest crew members off the project being exposed for their offensive remarks, there was just no getting around to how much of a nightmare this whole picture has become. You HAD to pay attention to it and can no longer use the whole “separating the artist from the art” approach when it came to Spider-Man: Lotus. And if you don’t want to take my word for it, the VFX team of the project would seem to agree with you.
The VFX Team
After all the controversy surfaced online surrounding Wayne, Konop, and Salandria, the entire visual effects team for the project stepped down as they felt there was no saving it. Main artist Max Aurnhammer made a video where he addressed the controversy and his decision along with others with leaving the project. He claimed that while some of the DMs were fake, most of the remarks made were very real, leaving himself and the entire VFX team shocked and disappointed. Although he regretted leaving the film and even claimed that the team didn’t feel “mistreated” by Konop, he felt it was the right decision to leave as the film “no longer aligned with what Spider-Man represents as a character.” One more domino to fall and now the ENTIRE stack has completely COLLAPSED!
Here’s that video with Aurnhammer, where he also showed off some of the team’s work on Lotus!
Suffice to say, the production for Spider-Man: Lotus was a complete and utter disaster. From the allegations to the VFX team leaving to the sense of cynicism being the main sole reason for this project’s existence, this did not have any good press attached to it upon release. You could not ignore any of these even if you wanted to.
But, let’s just assume none of those remarks happened and this fan film was ran by good, heart felt people that just want to express their love and passion towards the character of Spider-Man and possibly take a step forward with their filmmaking career. Even if you want to look at it through those merits, I can promise you that Spider-Man: Lotus is still pretty awful and does not do a service to the character of Peter Parker whatsoever. While I won’t do a full depth review on it, here’s my thoughts.
Spider-Man: Lotus comes across as a film made by a fan with a very ill-conceived vision of what the character of Spider-Man stands for. It attempts to dive into the inner turmoil of Peter Parker and how he responds to losing those he cares about because of his duty as Spider-Man, in this case him losing Gwen Stacy in the bridge battle against the Green Goblin. Unfortunately, the film fails to deliver a compelling narrative or a reason to get behind this version of Spider-Man, with Konop mistaking dourness and pro-faced seriousness for depth and nuance.
What kills the whole picture is that Peter Parker is profoundly unlikable here, constantly lashing out as his friends and pushing them away in the hopes that will somehow ease the pain. He’s probably more angrier here than the character ever has been in any version of him with the symbiote, making for probably the most despicable version of this character on film in any form. Konop just seems to think that having Peter being moopy and depressed over his dead girlfriend is enough of a reason to care about him and make the audience want him to overcome his trauma. While that might be enough with a runtime of 30 to 45 minutes top, it simply DOES NOT work for two hours!
Things take a turn for the worse halfway through when the plot FINALLY gets underway with Peter as Spider-Man paying a visit to a terminally ill child, requesting to meet his #1 hero in person before he dies. It starts off cute until Peter gets reminded of Gwen’s death. It’s then that Peter goes from comforting a child with terminal cancer to literally TRAUMA DUMPING on the child before his death. No joke! The last memory our hero wants to give to a young kid who always looked up to him before he dies is nothing but pure bitterness and trauma! THAT IS NOT SPIDER-MAN! Even if Peter does get talked back into it and is able to comfort the kid in the end, the fact that he even chose to do that at all is simply unforgivable!
It also doesn’t help that the pacing is slower than a sloth with a broken leg and the storytelling here is basically non-existent. About every scene is way too long, with just the same repetitive scenes of characters talking about how sad they are set to loop with the same constant score playing and the same pretentious imagery throughout. There’s just no forward momentum of any kind here and the transition from scene to scene is so awkward that it at times comes across as an extended clip show than an actual film.
There are a handful of elements that do work well here such as the spot-on CGI, the comic book accurate suit, and the generally okay performances from the cast, but as a whole, Spider-Man: Lotus feels less like a love letter to Spider-Man and more of a neglect for him. Konop’s prideful and arrogant mindset is on full display here, more concerning of making his fan film so bleak, dour, and “totally not for kids” that he forgot to actually provide compelling characters and an engaging narrative to his picture. There’s a reason why people like Jon Watts are the ones in charge of making these Spider-Man movies in Hollywood and people like Gavin J. Konop are not.
If you were to compare Lotus with the other Spider-Man films made, then I would say this is easily worst than all of them, even more so than The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2. For as bad as those films are, there is at the very least some sort of pacing and sense of rhythm throughout and there’s enough going on in the actual movies to justify it being over two hours long. And yes, all three of Jon Watts films are far superior to whatever Lotus is. I have my issues with Homecoming and Far From Home but those at least function well as actual films and doesn’t seem like it’s going out of it’s own way pretending to be something that it’s actually not.
And if you think that it’s unfair to compare a low-budget fan film to high-budget films made in Hollywood, well you can blame Konop and the crew on that, who have made various comments and going as far to claim that this film would do Spider-Man far more justice than Marc Webb and Jon Watts ever did. Or the other toxic fanboys of other franchises that actually believe they know the series they claim to be a fan of better than the actual creators and makers of it. If you’re gonna talk the talk, then you better walk the walk or else you will get this as a result.
There is a lot you can say about Spider-Man: Lotus from what transpired both on and off camera but I think most people would agree that this is NOT what fan films should consist off. They shouldn’t be projects that are made for the sole purpose of showing certain folks “how it’s done”, they should be projects that are made to show the love, support, and passion they have for the character and franchise. While I’m sure some of that passion was shown by some of the innocent folks attached to this project, it’s overall sense of cynicism is felt throughout the entire 120 minute length with no attempt of deviating from it whatsoever.
If you take way the controversy involving the cast and crew, Spider-Man: Lotus would still serve as an example of everything that can go wrong with fan films. If you don’t take away that, then Spider-Man: Lotus serves as an example of everything that can go wrong with anything, with the extra controversy serving as a simple cherry on top of this s*itpiled sundae.
To quote Spidey himself in The Spectacular Spider-Man, “I can’t ever look the other way again!” And I believe everyone else would think the same thing in regards to Spider-Man: Lotus.
Here’s links to several different sites that go into the controversy surrounding this nightmare:
Adam's Blog 