Stan Lee Almost Made A Monster Movie With Legendary French Filmmaker Alain Resnais

People have been sharing incredible things about the late Stan Lee since his passing was reported Monday, from pictures alongside the comics god to unearthed columns he wrote in the ’60s denouncing racism. One of the more arcane tidbits from the Marvel Comics head’s life was this: He became great friends with legendary French filmmaker Alain Resnais, and the two came awfully close to making a sci-fi film together.

A letter written from Lee to Resnais was dug up today by the Twitter account Letters of Note. A quick Google search leads to a short documentary posted earlier this year, in which the cinephiles at the Criterion Collection sat down with the co-creator of Spider-Man, Black Panther, the Incredible Hulk and so many more. In it, Lee warmly speaks about the friendship between a man who was beloved by comics nerds and a man who was beloved by film freaks. (You can watch the video on their site.)

Lee recalls that, back in the day, Marvel received many fan letters, sometimes from European auteurs, including no less than Federico Fellini — a great admirer of comics and, of course, loopy dream logic, which Lee and his cohorts regular delivered.

Another was Alain Resnais. If you’re an advocate of the almost-gone FilmStruck, you probably know the work of the late auteur, who passed in 2014. If you don’t, he’s one of cinema’s most creative innovators, best known for head-spinning, formally playful classics like 1959’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour and 1961’s Last Year at Marienbad. (Blur paid homage to the latter in its video for the Parklife-era “To the End.”)

The two struck up a pen pal friendship that turned into an in-real-life one as well. The filmmaker would even crash in Lee’s Long Island guest house when visiting that part of America.

They even nearly teamed up. Lee said Resnais asked him to write a script — an environmentalist screed about all of New York City’s pollution congealing and turning into a destructive character. It was to be called The Monster Maker, which would be shot on NYC’s tiny, weirdly-named Rat Island. Lee wrote the script — his first ever — but, alas, it was not to be, thanks largely to Resnais’ combative relationship with the producers.

Lee also said Resnais spoke of making his own Spider-Man movie — one that definitely wouldn’t have been anything like a typical MCU outing. Resnais wanted to drop him into one of his art films, which tended to be playful, and sometimes outright silly. “I would have loved to have seen it,” Lee waxed only half a year ago.

If this gets Doctor Strange fans to watch Resnais’ heartbreaking 1967 time travel drama Je t’aime, je t’aime — the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind of its day — then the world will be that much richer.