Actor Bruce Campbell and filmmaker Sam Raimi started their careers together with the breakout hit Evil Dead franchise. Even after Raimi moved on to other projects, like his beloved Spider-Man series of films with Tobey Maguire, the filmmaker did not forget his friend. Campbell had small roles in all three Spider-Man movies under Raimi. In an interview with Al.com, Campbell explained how his characters in the films were the only ones to defeat the webbed wall-crawler.

"It's hard to lineate because [my characters in the Spider-Man movies are] so critical. The first one I named Spider-Man. If I wasn't in the movie a billion-dollar franchise would be called The Human Spider. He wants to get in the theater in the second one, past the snooty usher who won't let him in because he's late, because it will spoil the illusion, so I think I'm technically the only character who's ever defeated Spider-Man. And in part three, a superhero comes to a mortal for help. He wants me to help him propose to his girlfriend so it's sort of a landmark case where a superhero goes to a mortal for help which is pretty rare. So I can't delineate because they're all critical to the "Spider-Man" universe."

While Campbell's remarks were spoken mostly in jest, they serve to highlight the main reason why fans find Spider-Man so appealing. Despite being blessed with incredible abilities, the character of Peter Parker is at the end of the day an ordinary guy, going through the same everyday problems as everyone else, and just as helpless in the face of a snooty usher or a girl he's trying to impress.

For his part, Bruce Campbell is happy he was able to be a part of the superhero movie phenomenon in its early stages, even though rumors of him being set to play Mysterio or Mr. Sinister in a Spider-Man movie were never actualized. According to the actor, the fact that there is a growing love for watching superheroes save the day is symptomatic of a desire to escape amongst audiences.

"Comic books have always been popular but now they're really popular. Not really sure what that's all about but yeah social media has certainly helped but I think it's another form of escapism. Whenever times get weird, people want escapism. During The Depression they did the Busby Berkeley splashy musicals where everyone was happy all the time, when life was really miserable. And some decades where we're really doing okay, the movies turned introspective and we go after ourselves and figure out why we're like this and like that. And so I think we're in a phase where we just want to be taken away to another galaxy and Marvel is very happy to help."

Campbell is teaming up with Sam Raimi once again to produce the next installment of the Evil Dead franchise. Raimi is also developing the Doctor Strange sequel for the MCU, and going by his previous work, Campbell can probably count on a cameo appearance in that film as well. This news was first reported al.com.