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Spider-Man 4 Canned; Reboot Planned

film
By Will Perkins
January 11, 2010
Spider-Man

In what comes as surprising, but not totally unexpected news Deadline Hollywood has confirmed that Sony has scrapped Spider-Man 4. For months the film has been plagued by script problems, production delays and a May 2011 release date which was starting to look increasingly unrealistic. Sources report that director Sam Raimi told Sony Pictures that he could not “go forward creatively” with such a rushed production schedule. With Raimi’s departure Sony decided that they would rather scrap Spider-Man 4, replace Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst and start fresh.

So how does Sony plan to revive the franchise? By putting Peter Parker in high school naturally. That’s how you make things young and fresh, right? From the sounds of the press release Sony’s new Spider-Man film can be likened to Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man line in which the hero was literally a 15 year old high school kid. No director or actors are currently attached. Though Anton Yelchin and Michael Cera (Jesus Christ, WHY!?) have already been mentioned as potential replacements. The Spider-Man reboot is set for a 2012 release date.

This is probably a good thing for both the Spider-Man franchise and Sam Raimi. Spider-Man 3 was awful; the studio interfered too much and Raimi lost creative control, the result was a bloated, mess of a movie. Spider-Man 4 seemed to be heading in the same direction: too many villains (Black Cat, The Vulture and The Vulturess(!?) too much going on and too many story threads needing resolution. A fresh start with a younger Peter Parker (Maguire will be 36 in June) will be a good thing. Plus now Raimi is free to work on other projects like his new Evil Dead movie… and the World of Warcraft film. On second thought, maybe Sony should reconsider Raimi and spare us all what is sure to be an awful, awful Warcraft film.

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  • http://Website Alan / Falcon

    I have middling to high hopes for a Warcraft film. Blizzard GETS Epic, and they get Raimi. Their powers combined… and all that. The potential for the Warcraft movie coming sooner is the thing I like most about this move.

    But to each dork his own!

  • http://purplejesus.wordpress.com PJD

    Good for Raimi. It’s rare you see someone stand up to a film company like that and tell them to get bent because their idea sucks. I’d love to see him do another one, but I can live with the first two and pretend number three never happened. An Ultimate Spider-Man COULD be good. Key word there …

  • http://dorkshelf.com/ Will

    Aaron: I’m glad to see Raimi stand up to Sony, but it also makes me wish he’d done that for Spider-Man 3. I’d love to see him do another one too, but it’s just not in the cards I guess. Bendis’s Ultimate Spider-Man was hit and miss for me… the concept is good though.

    Alan: I like Sam Raimi and I like the Warcraft RTS games. I have issues with the MMORPG, mainly for what it is and for what it has done to the Warcraft mythology and fiction, such that it is.. My concern is that Raimi’s film will be less of a Warcraft – Orcs vs Humans film and more of a strange WoW movie.

    WoW has really soured me on the whole Warcraft franchise.

  • http://Website Dave

    Key ingredient to successful WoW movie directed by Raimi:

    *Bruce Campbell/Ash Williams

    I’d pay to see a chainsaw wielding S-Mart employee take on The Horde.

    But yeah… Spiderman 3 took a good thing and ruined it. I still don’t really believe in reboots. It’s like… a do-over. It shouldn’t really happen.

    It worked for Batman – it was an old series and needed refreshment (plus they already covered almost all the major villains). Spiderman needs to just pick itself up and refocus it’s efforts, not start from scratch again.

    I will however accept a reboot for X-Men (several years from now). Singer just went waaaaay too far with the last installment.

  • http://dorkshelf.com/ Lucas

    Reboots are great because all your company’s efforts can be focused on making that brand much more profitable. There’s little need to re-write the story, and all the inconsistencies of casting and etc. can be set aside. So, yeah, Sony’s probably doing the right thing.