Fan-Made Film ‘Spider-Man: Lotus’ Premieres To 3.6 Million Views On YouTube Despite Controversy

By Radhamely De Leon
Published Aug. 25, 2023, 9:39 a.m. ET

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A highly anticipated, homemade Spider-Man movie that found itself mired in controversy last year recently premiered on YouTube.

Titled Spider-Man: Lotus, the fan-made film follows the masked superhero as he grapples with the death of his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. Actor Warden Wayne plays Peter Parker, who finds himself questioning whether he should continue with the vigilantism or retire his mask for good until a terminally ill child makes one final request – to meet Spider-Man.

It premiered on YouTube on Aug. 10, garnering well over 3.6 million views in the two weeks since its release.

The highly anticipated film went viral after earning $112,000 for its budget through crowdfunding. But, in 2022, the film received backlash after screenshots of racist texts between Wayne and the film’s director, Gavin J. Konop, leaked online, causing the movie’s visual effects team to quit and multiple donors to request refunds.

The New York Times reports Wayne said the texts were from when he “was a teenager being home-schooled in a conservative Christian environment and that they were examples of ignorance, not racism.”

Konop echoed a similar sentiment, saying he was a teenager at the time who was a “part of these communities of teenagers and people who didn’t really fit in who were saying explicit things to get attention.” 

Justin Hargrove, a Black actor who appeared in the movie, spoke on his experience working on the film. “I know what it’s like to experience racism, actual racism, and I know what it’s like to experience ignorance, and I didn’t experience either of those two when I was on set,” he said. “But I think what happened was just pure ignorance.”

Nero Omar, a 19-year-old visual effects artist from Singapore who did some work on the film, was one of the people who stepped away from the film after the texts leaked. He told The New York Times that Konop’s actions “tainted the project,” even if the texts had been sent when they were teenagers. “He still had to be held accountable for his actions,” Omar said.

Konop first came up with the idea for Spider-Man: Lotus when he was a high school junior living in Arkansas. He initially aimed for a budget of $20,000, but the Indiegogo campaign quickly reached over $100,000 after he shared the first trailer for the film.

The film is not affiliated with Marvel or Sony in any way.

Spider-Man Lotus is one of many fan-made films about the vigilante available on YouTube, created by fans of the IP.