Creators of the ride had to develop new technology to build this one-of-a-kind comic book adventure, involving revolutionary 3-D animation which is designed to be viewed from a moving location. For the first time in theme park history, this attraction combines moving, motion-based platform ride vehicles, 3-D film and live action in one revolutionary ride.
Following the death of Stan Lee, Universal Orlando selected several fan-created letters celebrating the man and put them on a special desk in the ride's queue where they will remain.
On March 27, 1999, Islands of Adventure opened for technical rehearsals, with The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man being one of its debut attractions. On May 28, 1999, the attraction officially opened to the public. Due to the success of the attraction, Universal Studios Japan opened a clone of the ride on January 23, 2004.
An Iron Man billboard can be seen in the background in one scene.
In March 2012, the ride was upgraded with new 4K high-definition animation and projections that offer much more detail than the brightly-colored cartoon-like imagery previously shown off in the attraction. Also, new dichroic 3D glasses all but eliminated the issue of "ghosting" (double images that are inherent with polarized 3D projection technology) suffered by the previous system. They also added Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee into the animated story in three spots.