Nikki Finke is reporting quite the bit of breaking news saying Sony Pictures decided today to reboot the Spider-Man franchise after franchise director Sam Raimi pulled out of Spider-Man 4 because he felt he couldn’t make its summer release date and keep the film’s creative integrity. In case that’s not clear enough it means Raimi and the cast, including Tobey Maguire are out.
Finke’s new right hand man, Variety‘s Mike Fleming, learned the studio will focus on a reboot script by Jamie Vanderbilt with a new director and a new cast for 2012.
Finke’s sources supplied her with the following quote attributed to Raimi saying, “I can’t make your date. I can’t go forward creatively. That’s it.”
Instead of replacing Raimi inside the same franchise Sony Pictures co-chairman Pascal and Columbia Pictures’ Matt Tolmach decided on a reboot.
Personally this doesn’t bother me much as my interest in the Spider-Man franchise has declined and declined. However, how will fans react? Fans loved Raimi’s first two films and while they didn’t much care for Spider-Man 3 the stories related to Raimi’s displeasure with some of the story and villain choices for the third film maintained fan confidence. Now that he’s out and Columbia seems to be using a script Raimi felt wasn’t up to par I’m not sure how that will go over.
Everyone ready to learn about how Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man again… I hear it has something to do with a spider…
