Along Came A Spider

Spider-Man 4 looks to be more like Spider-Man 1. Full blown franchise reboot. Here's the word on what went down:

Apparently, director Sam Raimi told Sony Pictures: "I can't make your date. I can't go forward creatively." And, so, once he said "That's it", Sony Pictures decided they didn't want to replace him and instead chose to reboot the franchise. And that means more more Tobey Maguire either. The studio was not yet "pay or play" on some of the talent negotiations at the tail end, so whether potential villians John Malkovich and Anne Hathaway have anything to do with the new franchise is anyone's guess.

The events that led to the decision to scrap Spider-Man 4 can be traced to mid-December when an email alerted the pic's special effects crew that the movie would not be starting as planned. At that point, it wasn't well known that Raimi had huge problems with the script that had run through multiple screenwriters. Raimi had been very vocal inside Sony that he "hated" the script, and was waiting for another version from screenwriter Alvin Sargent, who wrote Spidey 2 & 3 and is married to Spidey franchise producer Laura Ziskin. "It is unlikely that May 11, 2011, date will be made," a Sony insider said, and they were right.

Spider-Man 4 was supposed to start filming in February, then it pushed to March. Then late March/early April. And by January 5th there was no date at all. Sony made it official in their press release:

Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012. Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today they are moving forward with a film based on a script by James Vanderbilt that focuses on a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises.

The new chapter in the Spider-Man franchise produced by Columbia, Marvel Studios and Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin, will have a new cast and filmmaking team. Spider-Man 4 was to have been released in 2011, but had not yet gone into production.

The studio will have more news about Spider-Man in 2012 in the coming weeks as it prepares for production of the film. I don't know if rebooting a franchise just a few years after it's last film is the smartest thing, especially since the last trilogy was well received.

okay, maybe it's not such a bad idea