James Vanderbilt has been brought on board to write the screenplay for Spider-Man 4 for Sony Pictures.
Vanderbilt most recently penned David Fincher’s Zodiac, polished up the X-Men Origins: Wolverine script, and has written The Rundown, Basic and Darkness Falls.
Laura Ziskin is returning as producer of the billion-dollar franchise, though no deals have been made to bring back series director Sam Raimi or stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst.
Plot points are being closely guarded by the studio, though the intent is to scale back the story to include only two villains instead of repeating the Spider-Man 3 model.
Several writers were being considered for the fourth installment, and Vanderbilt apparently was chosen by Sony executives for his character-driven approach to the story rather than a focus on special effects.
