Well it looks like the team is shaping up for another run at Spider-man. We get the scoop from DeadlineHollywood via IESB:
News hit today that Spider-man veterans Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi have been locked in by Sony to return for back to back productions of Spidey 4 & 5.
…I’m told that both star Tobey Maguire and director Sam Raimi will be returning to make Zodiac screenwriter Jamie Vanderbilt’s script of Spider-Man 4. Sources tell me that Sony has recently locked in both veterans of Spider-Man 1 through 3…
…There’s no deal yet for Kirsten Dunst but Mary Jane Watson will be featured. I’m told Sony “would never recast her” despite her rehab problems…
Well I consider this to be good news. I really didn’t care for the third installment, but I do like the team they have working on the franchise and I hope they can follow up with a solid fourth to get things back on track. I also hope they break their previous promise, and recast Mary Jane.
The source article goes on to say that when the villain is announced – you will know who will be playing him. I am guessing the Lizard. Dr. Curt Connors has already been introduced, and a giant Lizard Man is as good a villain as any.
They also suggest that both films may be shot simultaneously in order to cut down production costs. From the article, it appears that getting everyone together was “difficult”. That sounds to me like the gang isn’t thrilled about more films, but want to make the money and get it out of the way; however, I may be reading into things a tad too much.
International friends – what are your thoughts? Do you consider this to be good news and who would you like the villain to be?
Please not another Spider-movie!!!! The third one was the worst nightmare ever!!!!! There are a bunch of marvel heroes out there….c’mon people! And besides…If Dunst isn’t cast as MJ, it wouldn’t work, Toby Sucks!!!
It’s indeed a good news. I guess they would learn much from the third installment. I didn’t think they were gone awful, it just they’re so overwhelmed by the success of the series.
Hope they’ll put their best, right on track!
This is terrible news, as I lost my enthusiasm for Spidey.
A fresh crop of faces including a new director was the way to go.
Expect more turd to pile up.
Spider-Man 3 was a mess, a film that seemed completely unsure of itself, in spite of the first and second films owing their popularity to the fact that they were so incredibly matter of fact in saying “this is who we are, dig it.”
Maybe it was the stars and director being bored with the material by the third round… or the studio mandated inclusion of Venom (a worthless and dull character that’s nothing more than an immature fanboy’s dream: Spidey with bigger muscles and fangs – yay!)…. Or the fact that structurally the third film tried to hard to duplicate the structure of the first (which the second film was guilty of as well but handled far better)…. Or the fact that there was some terrible retcon that needlessly and horribly altered the origin of the character in a way that completely robbed him of his identity…. Or even the obvious drop in quality of how the action scenes are realized (ever notice how the cran scene just…ends?).
To me, a big part of the problem was the supreme love-of-his-life focus Raimi put on Mary Jane in the first film — that film ends with both characters knowing they absolutely and without question love the other and you can’t indefinitely sustain a romance like because the conflict you create to keep them apart inevitably begins to feel forced. And there’s nothing more forced in Spider-Man 3 than all the MJ drama.
Regardless of the reason, the movie was a terrible way to end the series. I’m a believer that Spider-Man is not a role easily recast at this point without a ground-up reboot which could only be accomplished after enough time has passed that audience’s have officially closed the book on the Raimi/Maguire films. So, rather than wait and possibly miss the window on what’s left of the superhero craze, it looks like Raimi has convinced at least his main star to come back for a proper sendoff.
Now if he can come up with a solid story, a decent villain and popcorn action scenes that dazzle once more, maybe we can all forget about that little dark detour the franchise took.
I just hope that the studio has learned its lesson from Spiderman 3 and Raimi gets complete creative control over 4 and 5. If that happens I’m sure we’ll get something great regardless of who the villain is.
Dunst is getting too much flak for MJ. She was ok in the role and it was just the writing that made her look so bad, but I’d be all for having Peter’s love interest be someone else.
I think Spider-Man 3 was a disappointment to many people, but I didn’t think it was a bad film. The biggest problem is Venom, which That 70’s Show guy screwed it up.
I wanna have the next villian kill both MJ and Gwen
After what they did, in Spiderman 3, I really don’t know if its a good idea. Anyway I’d like to see Kraven the Hunter or Mysterio as the villain.
Definitely the Lizard. It would be so stupid not to have the Lizard with all the setup that’s occurred in the previous three films.
I think we can all agree that the Lizard most definitely offers a good physical fight. It would be nice to see Spidey fight a villain he’s scared to death of (Venom should’ve been that villain but anyway…). Problem is the Lizard has zero personality. Is Connors/Lizard strong enough to stand as the single main villain?
I don’t see a possible Kraven’s Last Hunt type storyline with Lizard replacing Vermin mainly because that was a Kraven story. The 4th movie should focus mainly on the Lizard. Not to mention a dude in a furry leopart print jacket and loincloth would look absolutely ridiculous on screen.
I guess you could have sort of a Lizard bounty which brings out different villains/factions wanting to capture it or kill it. Electro, Shocker, Sin-Eater? could be guys going after the prize. Although I think Electro should be the big villain in the 5th movie.
I hope we never see the Vulture in a movie, I’ve always found him to be one of the lamer villains, a geriatric flying around in a cancer causing flight harness (and yet he’s still not dead).
No to Carnage, he’s not dark…just stupid. Carnage barely registers as a one dimensional character.
About Brant again…Elizabeth Banks…oh yeah…
Darren Seeley, I like a lot of your ideas but 6 arms??? I think we should leave that along with Morbius in the comic books.
Spidey 3 was a disappointment considering how universally well received the first two were but it was by no means horrible. Venom was handled badly and MJ & Pete had some crappy character moments but Harry’s GG arc was handled well and the action was good overall. This movie made a crapload of money so I don’t think it killed the franchise at all. Was there ever a fear of a reboot? Obviously not and it’s no surprise there will be more Spidey movies.
I don’t get the Dunst bashing either, I never had a problem with her. If anything it’s probably the writers who didn’t quite have a handle on MJ’s character. You can’t kill MJ but I think it’s ok to shuffle her off temporarily (they’ve done that in the current comics anyway).
Personally, I’d like to see more of the Bugle staff involved, particular Robbie and Betty. Having MJ move away would allow for a possible Peter, Betty, Gwen triangle…(toss in Ned Leeds to make a square??). I’d say have a bit less May and more Robbie as he’s always been somewhat of a surrogate father figure for Peter. Let’s see Pete be a photographer trying to help a Bugle journalist break a story.
More in my next post…
Right on Obi-Wan Kubrick.
All three Spiderman films were garbage.
I absolutely hate the first 3 spider-man films and think Raimi blows.
Two more, eh? That’s fine by me. Back to back? That’s what they should have done with 3 and they learn from past errors. How great would it have been if they had finished off the Green Goblin arc and then followed into the Symbiont/Eddie Brock.Venom one. But what is done is done, and it is time to move on.
Speaking of moving on. I also agree that the bashing of Kirsten Dunst is out of control. I suppose it is one thing when Tobey’s Peter Parker gets put in the ringer of Sam Raimi’s dark ironic humor, but in the third film, it was MJ’s turn and the response wasn’t great. So I have zero problem with Dunst. Sony says “she won’t be recast” So be it.
She gets a gig in L.A. and her and Pete grow apart; Pete still has some guilt over the events of 3, in addition to MJ being nabbed by Green Goblin, Doc Ock, assulted/threatened by Harry as Goblin, then taken by Brock/Venom, and Sandman blocking off various rescue attempts etc. Hey, MJ, you seem to be in this little cliche here, maybe you should take some time off, get out of the Big Apple for awhile. Wouldn’t want your ex to turn into some kinda Man-Wolf and hunting you down in a jealous spat or anything……
Gwen Stacy is around, she just wants to be friends. Her dad is still in the film, berating Spider-Man for letting Sandman get away. (Later we find out Sandman has been ‘given asylum’ in exchange for working for a foreign government strike team code named Wild Pack, but more on that in the inevitable spinoff)…and then Pete has no one to turn to except for…
Betty Brandt.
YES. We get more screen time with the Daily Bugle characters and less time with Aunt May and the ghost of Uncle Ben, who cameos. Why? So we are spared the ‘life lessons’, that’s why!. We have a small scene where Flash Thompson is turning out to show Parker some respect now, and winds up slowly becoming one of Pete’s best friends.
NICE. Curt Connors is mentioned in 1, seen in 2, in 3, a scene has pet lizards in a cage. Connors has a medical breakthrough that helps regenerate dead tissue. However, something goes wrong and he slowly mutates into The Lizard. Peter/Spidey has an op to actually “save” a friend and mentor, being reminded of the tragedy of Norman Osborn and Otto Octavius.
SWEET.
To add insult to injury, exposure to Connor’s formulas causes Peter to grow four more arms…just as he cures Connors…
4:
…and in an effort to stop the mutating Spider-Man, Sergei Kraven steps up…as does his brother, who uses the distraction of his brother and Spidey to go on a crime spree as The Chameleon…
Nuff said.
I wish Spider-Man 3 never existed. Its just wierd having 2 great Spider-Man movies and 1 that really KILLED it. yes, it only takes one movie to Kill an entire franchise. Sure some will argue, James Bond did it. 007 is just different, its espionage, its just different, and most of the Bond movies kick-ass anyway. how many reboot or remakes do we have to endure until it works? Theres only one chance left for a reboot, and always the rule is, only one reboot and thats it. So maybe its a good idea to continue it and save that one reboot until its necessary.
Having said that- I want to see the opening of Spider-Man4 showing scenes from Spider-Man3 (yes you heard me right) on Mysterio’s Visor ultimately revealing that the whole fiasco of Spider-Man 3, was Mysterio’s master plan, and anything that happen in 3 never took place. So now we can continue directly from Spider-Man2, taraaa!!
@finaljoe
your points of 1 n 2 are insane, i totally disagree. I get your third point, but having Topher Grace as Venom??? C’mon!!!! its better to just show Venom in all it’s glory and never have to show his-70’s-show-face. I don’t hate TG, but he was the wrong guy for Venom. The Hulk have Bruce Banner as “personality” that you mentioned, and having A big CGI monster causing destruction is interesting, a minute or two, who cares, Bruce gave the human side of it, what more can we want?
Further more, what’s wrong with RotJ? what came after that should be mentioned.
dang people – you can’t kill mary jane. if you read the comics at all, spiderman’s main motivation is to protect and provide for mary jane and aunt may.
i think rami can return to form if he doesn’t have studio execs forcing their vision on him, like they did with ‘Venom’.
for enemies, Lizard would be great. also Rhino, or Scorpion.
hey final joe,
if you think that spider man 3 is better than return of the jedi i think you don’t deserve a say in any thing on this website. return of the jedi was equal if not better than the other star wars films because of the epic space battles and a great end fight
and come on spider man three was ok but in comparison to the other two it was an abortion
To follow up on Ransom Betty,
what would work for me in 4 is to have Dunst in first 20 or so mins and kill her off in the same way as Glen in the original Marvel comics and for Peter to hitch up with Gwen (swapping with MJ in the comics) . This would be a interesting reversal between the two characters for the screen version and also get rid of Dunst
I’m hoping that the fact that they are making both films at the same time won’t cause them to split up the story and I have to buy two tickets to see one movie.
Very good news.
Don’t recast Mary Jane just kill her off.
Vilian suggestion- bring back vemon, with different host body, and throw a little carnage in there but save him for the fifth movie like they should have done with two-face.
Yay! Spider-Man 3 was one of the few 3-equals that actually remained consistant with the first two in terms of quality rather than doing a “Return of the Jedi” on us.
1.) Mary Jane’s career took up at most 10 minutes of screen time. It’s called character and story. Get over it Campea and stop overracting.
2.) Peter’s “emo” stage was perfect. It’s exactly the type of thing he would go if his inabitions were removed and he became an exaggerated form of himself. It was embaressing as it should be. Peter Parker is a nerd and only he would have thought he was being cool.
3.) Venom Shenom. Having the actor’s face inview gave him a personality the average viewer could be interested as opposed to just a big snarling CGI monster that only comic book fans would be interested in. This is why the Hulk movies do not work when the Hulk is on screen. A big CGI monster causing destruction is interesting for maybe a minute. There needs to be personality for people to care.
Too bad they wont remake it to Dark Knight !
I just hope Raimi signed on with FULL CONTROL of the pictures!
If not, then expect more Spidey films like the third one.
is cliff robertson going to be back???
I know this is a Spiderman discussion but Mr. Chris made it a new one with his Temple of Doom sucks comment.
Temple of Doom is the shit!! I don’t care if it’s not your favorite of the series, but you can’t say it sucks. It’s so dark, it’s beautiful. I love both Raiders and Last Crusade, but they are both very similar in style. Temple of Doom is the change up the series needed.
Anyway, I look forward to Spiderman 4 even after the disappointment of Spiderman 3. I am a huge Spiderman fan and I’m glad they have the same group together for this one. Raimi and Maguire teamed up for 2 phenomenal Spiderman films, they can definitely do it again.
@ Klendathu
yes. that comment was impecable. thats what i want not a quiet fucking spiderman. and this isnt tobey mcwires fault..thats the writers fault for not writing any jokes in the script…
GIVE ME MY WISECRACKIN’ WALLCRAWLER THIS TIME!
yeah well…electro must be used. he is way more badass then fucking carnage idk what the fuck you guys are talking about
carnage was alwasy doic ocs pawn and the lizard NEVER dies..he always ends up being spidermans friend..
we shouldnt be talking about the obvious (carnage and lizard) obviously they need a good villain and they WILL bring someone in.
and raimi already sayd he wanted to have the vulture and electro in it. mainly because theyre smart fucking villains not dumbasses like carnage and lizard….
yes- obviously lizard and carnage will be in it. but i just want to know who the hells going to be the REAL villain.
They likely won’t pull a Spider-man 3 again. Raimi was probably already kicking himself after the reviews came in and started thinking back to all the things he could’ve done differently. I still think he’s the perfect director for this series.
I’m just glad they didn’t reboot it. It’s always possible to jump back from a bad sequel to a better one (had to go through “Temple of Doom” before we got to “Last Crusade.”)
I think the reason this has a chance of being successful is because of the writers and the fact that they are not changing the cast or rebooting. One bad movie out of 3 isn’t the end of the world. I think Raimi was bogged down by studio pressure to fill Spider-Man 3 over the top and now that the studio has seen the results of fan hatred. Who knows? Maybe they will allow Raimi to tell a story with these next two instead of the action wankfest that was Spider-Man 3.
I agree with JB that since Venom is gone, we need Carnage. I see things going like this(just a suggestion). Dr. Connors uses the symbiote sample he has to create the formula that turns him into the Lizard(I want to see the crocodilian one from the tv series & the 90’s books). I would also like them to take perhaps another stab at Venom. Don’t freak; here’s what I mean: beginning of the movie, Jameson hires the Scorpion to make Spidey look bad. They fight and Scorpy fails within like 3 minutes. He comes across an escaped piece of symbiote left over from Eddy Brock. The two fuse, and create the new Venom. As long as they don’t give the villains too much screen time, I think this will work. We need maybe an opening wedding scene, and a few scenes at the new house. Spidey’s work is never done, so many of the fight scenes can involve gangs, or ever some under-used badguys(Mysterio perhaps?) with no effect on the plot. He comes into contact with Scorpion first(one scene, maybe 3 minutes), later with the new Venom. Of course, by the end of the movie, we discover that the new Venom has given birth to Carnage, and he’s possessed the serial killer Cletus Kassady. It’s not completely comicly accurate, but It’s the best I’ve got for the shit they’ve given us. GWEN STACY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PETE’S FIRST LOVE! They just threw her in their like a monkey wrench, and now the whole timeline’s fucked up.
If it is the Lizard. Then I am totally on board.
I do not want to see Carnage after what has happened with Venom. Besides, Raimi didn’t like Venom, so I have no reason to believe he’d be thrilled in anyway about doing a movie with Carnage.
Also, they already said that they didn’t want to touch any “dark” elements..and Carnage is just about the darkest and most violent thing Spiderman has going for him…
The only thing that is stopping me from thinking this is going to be ‘Spider-man IV: The Quest for Peace’ is the writer they have. Otherwise, i’m not excited at all.
I love Raimi and I love what Maguire did in the first two films anyway but Spidey 4 is going to have to go a long way to get people excited again about this franchise. I figured the best way to do that was inject fresh blood into it.
One of the big problems i found when i saw Spidey 3 was that every time Spidey was web swinging (which is supposed to be a thrilling sight), I was bored. I was bored because it was the same ropey CGI Spidey, the same theme music repeated to death, and Raimi had clearly done everything he could visually with the Spider-man character. What director wouldn’t be in that position after three films?
I can only hope Raimi has something fresh to bring to the table.
Hopefully Mary Jane gets knocked off in this one. I would live to see Gwen Stacy be Peter’s chick for the remainder of the series.
I just hope there’s more “Bad Peter” dancing sequences!!!
I think Lizard would be a great villain, and throw in Kraven the Hunter. It would be cool with Spider-Man having to stop the Lizard from creating mayhem and at the same time have to protect him from Kraven who wants him as a trophy. I think Carnage would be too watered down for a PG-13 movie
I hope they make this one good. The # 1 draw for a movie is BEING ABLE TO FUCKING WATCH IT! That was not accomplished in 3. Villain choice:
I have no problem with the Lizard, but ever since the 90’s when the TV show came out, Ive wanted to see Carnage. He is like Venom, except for 3 things:
1. He is a serial killer
2. He Is Red
3. He is more fucking bad-ass.
Would you be on board for that Doug?