How 'Freaks and Geeks' alumni helped save the Spider-Man franchise

To get into the sure hands of Marvel president Kevin Feige, Spider-Man first needed help from the cast discovered by Paul Feig. Because Spidey might not even be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe today were it not for the talent of "Freaks and Geeks."

When Feig created the short-lived, now-revered NBC series, the period high-school comedy boasted mostly unknowns, but one of its first actors to become entwined with Spider-Man was James Franco. Two years after the Emmy-winning "Freaks and Geeks" was canceled in 2000, young Franco made the first of two appearances in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" movies, as best friend to Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker and son of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin/Norman Osborn.

It wouldn't be the first time that Franco would have a hand in Spidey's cinematic fate.

The new film "Spider-Man: Homecoming," Sony's third reboot of the character in 15 years, has a distinct "Freaks and Geeks" pedigree. That is largely because the movie was co-written by John Francis Daley, who starred on Feig's series as a baby-faced freshman - and who now echoes some of his character's aspects for Tom Holland's 15-year-old Peter Parker.

Daley says he tapped into his wider "Freaks" experience, too, to help create his new film's high school setting.

"And then there's Martin Starr," Daley tells The Washington Post, referring to the "Silicon Valley" actor. Seventeen years ago, Starr was playing a clean-cut student on "Freaks"; in "Homecoming," he plays a bearded high-school teacher who leads a student trip to Washington.

But when it comes to Marvel Studios finally getting to creatively save the web-slinger after the disappointing "Amazing Spider-Man 2," the "Freaks" actors who indirectly had the greatest impact might well have been Franco and frequent co-star Seth Rogen.

As head of Sony, Amy Pascal still had a tight grip on her Spider-Man franchise in 2014, when the then-power brokers over at Marvel - including Feige and Ike Perlmutter - kept approaching her about working out a Sony-Marvel partnership, in part so Spider-Man might rightfully appear alongside the MCU's Avengers.

In late 2014, the infamous Sony hack would occur, reportedly sparked in retaliation for Rogen's forthcoming Sony comedy "The Interview," which controversially depicted the assassination of North Korea's leader. Among the many embarrassing Sony emails revealed by the hack were reputation-damaging communiques by and to Pascal, who would step down as Sony head by the following February.

In announcing Pascal's post-hack exit, Sony said that she would produce its next Spider-Man movie alongside Feige, as the Los Angeles Times reported. So Pascal and Feige hammered out a plan to save Spider-Man, thanks to a creative joint custody that allowed Holland's Peter Parker to appear first in last year's "Captain America: Civil War" in a winning "homecoming" of sorts for Marvel - the company that birthed the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko character in the early '60s.

Now, as "Homecoming" earns mostly positive reviews and expectations for a domestic debut north of $100 million, a big thank-you card is certainly due "Freaks and Geeks."