After obvious interest and a few back-and-forth comments in Untitled Spider-Man Reboot I figured it wouldn’t hurt to sort through the details making the rounds from various sources.
First, if you hadn’t heard, Sam Raimi and his Spider-Man 4 cast have left the production and the film is no more. Tobey Maguire is no longer Peter Parker and no more Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane. The three films the group made, starting in 2002 with Spider-Man, grossed over $1.1 billion domestically (almost $2.5 billion worldwide). The final installment, Spider-Man 3, was released in 2007 to woeful reviews, but still managed to haul in $151 million its opening weekend, which nearly made for half of its overall domestic take as word-of-mouth wasn’t exactly complimentary. The franchise had hit a wall and Sony needed to deliver a fourth film that would reinforce fan confidence.
It’s been long believed Raimi was not entirely pleased with the story or villains in the third installment and his perceived disappointment is something many assumed would spur him to create a killer fourth film, but on January 6 news came out the project was stalled with second-hand sources saying Raimi “hated” the script from writers Jamie Vanderbilt, David Lindsay-Abaire and Gary Ross. As such, production stalled and yesterday it came to a screeching halt.
First reported at Deadline.com, Columbia abandoned production on the fourth film as Raimi and his cast will no longer be involved in the franchise.
Word from the Los Angeles Times is Sony wanted to make Spider-Man 4 for about $230 million, which Raimi thought was not enough given his ambitions.
In a prepared statement, Sony Chairman Michael Lynton said, “Spider-Man will always be an important franchise for Sony Pictures and a fresh start like this is a responsibility that we all take very seriously. We have always believed that story comes first and story guides the direction of these films.”
The decision is now to move forward with a reboot as previous Spider-Man 4 scripter Jamie Vanderbilt has already prepared a script, which Sony is rumored to be ready to sign a director and cast with hopes of getting production underway before year’s end.
Earlier I assumed this meant they were taking Vanderbilt’s script for Spider-Man 4, which had already been rewritten by the likes of David Lindsay-Abaire and Gary Ross, but am now reminded of news from August 16, 2009 when it came out Vanderbilt had been hired to pen Spider-Man 5 and 6. At that time Variety worded the news by saying “the studio has quietly engaged screenwriter James Vanderbilt to pen Spider-Man 5 and Spider-Man 6,” two films said to have an interconnected storyline.
At that time it was said if the original crew didn’t want to return for a fourth and fifth film “Vanderbilt’s script would be the blueprint for a franchise reboot.” It seems that day has come and they are just moving ahead a bit earlier than planned.
EW and THR report the franchise reboot will place a high school-aged Peter Parker in a more contemporary setting, as a teenager grappling with normal teen problems while also dealing with his superpowers. EW’s Nicole Sperling is also the first to go to the well and bring up Batman Begins (a move I speculated on Twitter) saying the studio is “interested in a more gritty, contemporary redo of the series, they are certainly focused on younger directors making waves in Hollywood.” They even toss a few directorial candidates around such as (500) Day of Summer helmer Marc Webb, Seabiscuit director and one of the Spidey 4 co-writers Gary Ross and even Michael Bay. Of course, the recent news saying Transformers 3 will likely go into production in May of this year for a July 1, 2011 release makes the possibility of Bay directing an impossibility.
While director possibilities are being tossed around, Movieline took advantage of the news by posting a list of nine possible actors to take over the role of Peter Parker less than two hours after reporting on the fourth film’s demise. Among the names mentioned I think Logan Lerman is a great suggestion, but I’m not interested in the obvious suggestion of Zac Efron.
Originally Spider-Man 4 was set to be released on May 6, 2011, but once the delay hit the wire Paramount’s Thor, which just began principal photography, moved into the abandoned spot and even Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to be directed by Rob Marshall took advantage moving into the May 20 slot.
The plan now is to release the new film in the summer of 2012, which will actually mean there will be a five year gap between Spider-Man films, which is only three years fewer than when Nolan and Warner Bros. delivered Batman Begins in 2005 after Batman and Robin in 1997, but the same window Universal used when rebooting The Incredible Hulk.
For those of you wondering if the Marvel and Disney merger affects these films in any way, stop wondering. As long as Columbia continues to keep Spider-Man films in production they maintain the rights, a similar deal to what Fox has working with the X-Men franchise. And I don’t expect Columbia to ever let go of this cash cow. And don’t worry, while Marvel can pull the plug on Sony’s rights to the webslinger should they view the studios plans to be a detriment to the character, the fact this reboot will be produced by Avi Arad, Laura Ziskin and Marvel Studios makes me believe that won’t be a problem.
So, for now, we wait, but I don’t think we’ll be waiting long as the stopwatch to get this thing going seems to already be ticking.
