Sam Raimi Walks Away from Spider-Man 4, Sony to Reboot Franchise Instead
Whoa. This is some pretty crazy news being reported by Nikki Finke over at Deadline Hollywood today, and it looks like Spider-Man 4 as we know it is officially dead! We heard that there was trouble on the Spider-Man 4 front when it came out that there were disagreements over the script and that the release date might end up getting pushed back. Apparently when push came to shove, Sam Raimi has decided to walk away, and Sony has decided not to replace him.
Instead, they will now turn their attention to a reboot of the franchise from a script that was written by James Vanderbilt a while back. Everyone will be recast, which means that Tobey Maguire has donned the red and blue tights for the last time. Sony has confirmed this news with a short, non-committal update from their Twitter account:
“Spider-Man: Summer 2012: Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012.”
Sam Raimi will likely turn his attention to the World of Warcraft movie next. What do you think, did Raimi make the right decision? Is this a major disappointment, or are you excited to see someone new take the reins? And is Summer 2012 too soon for Sony to start over again?
Comments (55)
I’m just excited to see Raimi move onto new things, although i’d rather it not be another franchise film like World of Warcraft.
Posted by Drew on January 11th, 2010Its kind of sad to see him go and for the series to get a reboot already.thats crazy.he didnt make that bad of a choice with the last movie although the emo part was annoying.i hope this isnt true.
Posted by Ajmason on January 11th, 2010who cares weather he did right or wrong. it’s best for the franchise. this spider man sucked. toby was no spider man and kyrstyn dunce was no mary jane. i hope they do things right this time.
Posted by Rick on January 11th, 2010for spider man get a kid who looks both geeky yet believable that he can kick your ass
for mary jane get someone who’s actually worth risking your life to save, whos hot and can actually act.
How stupid of sony raimi did a great job and so did the cast replacing them is like replaceing rocky with some other guy or jack sparrow with an unknown
Posted by billy badass on January 11th, 2010But why not just continue it with a new cast and director? Why start all over again?
Posted by Sean on January 11th, 2010it is amazing how hollywood makes bad ideas the norm. really, reboot already, no time in between!? they are looking at a complete money grab with cheaper actors, director paired with a basic script. these corporations just can’t help looking at properties anywhere but the balance sheet.
Posted by rus in chicago on January 11th, 2010For me though, I honestly don’t care if Spider-Man’s desecrated on screen. I did care if Sam Raimi was released a massive piece of shit though, but I doubt they’ll hire another director I like as much as him.
Posted by Drew on January 11th, 2010I don’t like where this is going..
There just not to many directors out there with the mental capacity nor skills or vision to pull this off the right way.. They will probably cast someone like Stephen Sommers and try to make a last money grab with a film that will forever end the franchise \
they ll try a ”dark” spiderman?
Posted by KYriakos on January 11th, 2010This would be a good time for Disney to try and strike up some deal to work out getting the Spiderman movies put into the universe they’re creating. Either way, I’m excited to see a reboot more so then another sequel. A fresh clean slate with the characters and villains. It all comes down to cast and crew at this point and with 2012 only a couple years away, we’ll start to hear who is becoming involved over the next few months.
Posted by Captain N on January 11th, 2010I pray this reboot idea falls through and FAST!! Just don’t make anymore Spider-Man movies. At least not for another 20 years.
Posted by ShenEvil44 on January 11th, 2010I don’t like to see good directors get bogged down with franchises so I’m glad he’s gone to do different things. I don’t even mind completely different actors and crew, since then the three movies made already definitively become Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire’s Spider-man trilogy without a fourth one with some of the same people but different style that seems out of place with the first three.
I think the idea to reboot the story from high school is stupid. Do we really have to see the Parker wrestler and his uncle get killed again? Just get a new Spider-man and have him be Spider-man.
Posted by Glendon on January 11th, 2010I would have liked to see Raimi give the franchise another go and kicked ass and silenced all the fickle haters who wrote him off after Spider-Man 3, but maybe Drag Me To Hell did a good enough job of that. Speaking of Drag Me To Hell, I hope to see more of those types of films from Raimi. And if he does a WoW film, I hope it has the same tone as Army of Darkness, just bigger and more expensive.
As for the Spider-Man franchise, my interest/enjoyment of those films began and ended with Sam Raimi. If they put someone else awesome in there, great. Jay’s dream of passing franchises around to different directors could come true. But they won’t. They’ll get a hired gun director who won’t bring anything interesting to the table. I mean, no one knows what they’ll do or how good it’ll be, but I am very skeptical that it’ll be anything worthwhile.
Posted by Nate on January 11th, 2010I’m guessing cameos for Sam Jackson, Robert Downey Jr. and Edward Norton!
I’m on board for Spider-Man movies, but it’s quite a task to outdo what Raimi did with them.
Posted by Henrik on January 11th, 2010Shame. Raimi did good with the films but on the other hand I’m glad he’s off to do something else. I hope to God though that it isn’t World of Warcraft. Ugh!
Posted by swarez on January 11th, 2010People really need to stop freaking out about change. Change is good. We had three Raimi Spidey flicks and now we’re getting something new and fresh and they’re absolutely nothing wrong with that.
That being said, I’m not sure they need to retell the origin story. That seems like a waste of time.
Posted by rjdelight on January 11th, 2010P.S.
That really sucks for Maguire, seeing as how he was set to rake in $50 million.
Posted by rjdelight on January 11th, 2010Can someone please explain to me why studios find it necessary to revert back to the beginning when new filmmakers come into a comic franchise?
Yeah, Raimi and Maguire are out. So what? Why can’t a new team just start telling their own Spidey stories from where things are now? Sure some things will change, but you don’t need to go back to the very start. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Posted by Kyle on January 11th, 2010I would be surprised if they re-did the origin, but I think they want to take it back to high school, because that’s what people remember about Spider-Man and where you can tell the most basic stories, for all audiences. Kids don’t want to see Peter Parker struggle with having a baby, they wanna see him be the little nerd that could.
Its just easier to do Spider-Man in high school I think.
Posted by Henrik on January 11th, 2010I actually was hoping to see if Sam could of redeemed himself after 3.
Posted by Big Hungry on January 11th, 2010Fair enough for him to leave buy will be VERY sad to see Maguire go after his brilliant work in Brothers, got me excited to see him back as the spidey.
Woder what this’ll do for the series. Could destroy it – could turn it into th dark and brilliant Spidey that always should have been.
Posted by Billy Boyd Cape on January 11th, 2010i can’t wait for the Michael Cera/Peter Parker rumors
Posted by Mike on January 11th, 2010This is great news. Raimi concentrating on Warcraft is definitely a positive outcome to all this. With 5+ games, 10+ books, and the expansive lore of the MMO, he could really be creative with the film. Essentially, Army of Darkness is a world of warcraft-type story, so doing Warcraft with a much much bigger budget, it’s something I’m looking forward to.
Is it the right decision? I think so. To have to fold to the powers that be again and risk having backlash like he did from the 3rd one is something he wouldn’t want to experience again.
As for Fox reboot, I’m sure there are plenty of hack director out there that’ll like that Fox-friendly script. How about that Stephen Sommers, eh?
Posted by Primal on January 11th, 2010Just give the movie rights back to Marvel already.
Posted by Matt Keith on January 11th, 2010Good. Raimi wore out his welcome with my midway through SM2. 3 was just the shit icing on the cake.
Reboot, skip the origin and just come in with SM established, DO THE VILLAINS CORRECTLY(especially Venom… ugh) and get actors who actually come across like they give a damn and that fit the characters
Posted by Ben on January 11th, 2010Ugh … reboot. I think the next parody movie should just be called Origin Story or maybe that’ll be what this reboot of Spiderman will end up being. What Jay said about the Rocky movies a few podcasts ago is why I like it when they do many sequels if there is decent content. Each reboot sets something like that back.
Posted by Ian on January 11th, 2010Honestly I’m surprised. I dont’ feel one bad film (which I actually enjoyed)) should mean a reboot. The fact that Raimi stood his ground on this one to make a film with a quality script doesn’t make me think this reboot with be thus (though I’d love to be wrong of course, and we’ll see what happens). I can understand recasting, perhaps McGuire ws getting up in age, but I’d like to see this series continue on and see where Parker goes. I want another Spider-man film, but this is odd, since the original this series isn’t like the Batman one where it’s been long dormant, and the majority of the 3 films are good to great. So I guess we’ll see.
The problem is, it sounds like (or at least what got out to the public) that the fight between studio and Raimi came down to giving the film a good story and classic characters (Raimi) vs. Making it “Cool” (studio). So don’t be surprised if one of the Fast and the Furious or dance movie directors takes over.
Hopefully this frees up Raimi to make more “Drag me to Hell” (though I know he has WoW on his plate).
Posted by jurassicalien on January 11th, 2010Does reboot automatically mean origin story? I don’t know a lot about the spider-man comics, but is there a chance we could simply get a spider-man story set while peter is still attending highschool, and already has his powers and such. I would be ok with this. These origins take a lot of time that is really not needed for heroes like spider-man, super man, or batman which people generally already know. But how about a reboot with new director, style, and tone, that isn’t a straight origin story? I’m fine with that.
Posted by Matt on January 11th, 2010I’m with you, Henrik. Raimi’s trilogy shot through the high school years far too quickly for me. Flash Thompson is Parker’s second greatest villain!
I was just trying to find out when Sony’s rights expire, and all I could find was that they may actually have them in perpetuity. I wonder how the Kirby copyright reversion case could affect this?
Posted by Wintle on January 11th, 2010it turns out Greg was WAAy wrong on Avatar.. it grossed $1,341,694,147 up to now.. !!
i think he is going to overcome Titanic (poor1,848,813,795) by FAR..
It turns out not only Chicks but Dudes go back to rewatch it..
I practically went 3 times and i didn’t even liked the film that much!
I guess
James should rush his next Avatar before the Backlash takes place..
Oh.. men where he puts all of this money anyway.??.
Posted by KYriakos on January 11th, 2010jesus cave!..
uups.. wrong post!
Posted by KYriakos on January 11th, 2010That sucks that Sam left. I thought the movies were pretty good, even if the last one was my least favorite.
I think starting the franchise all over again (starting back from Highschool) is pretty fuckin stupid.I mean, we’ve already been there; and it hasn’t been that long ago that the first movie came out. They should just move on to some other villain. Lord knows that Spiderman’s got plenty.
Posted by Derek on January 11th, 2010I think this was a sound move on Rami’s part. I mean no one want’s another Spiderman 3, especially since the bar has been raised by the Dark Knight and Iron Man.
Anyways this may not be so bad in the end I just Wish Rami and the original crew had a better send off!
Posted by Marc on January 11th, 2010I’m not sure getting Marvel the rights back is the way to go. I mean so far Marvel has made 2 movies, none of which were anywhere near as good as the Spider-Man movies as far as I am concerned.
And I don’t really care if the story takes place in high school or not, a good movie is a good movie, but I do know if I was writing it, I would prefer it to be in high school, because it’s a simpler thing to structure around than real life.
Posted by Henrik on January 11th, 2010Sony should leave the franchise alone for a few years before they try their hand at bringing the red and blue latexman back on the screen again.
Posted by Kasper on January 11th, 2010Great, now they can cast Taylor Lautner, that ball of charisma and acting talent. Hopefully they find a way to fit in the rest of the twilight crew and end it off with a nice dose of Channing Tatum.
Posted by soap on January 11th, 2010if you think about it all the things that made S/M3 not a really good movie was all studios choices..
All the heavy cgi villains.. venom.. etc, those were all studios demands.
but at the end as it turns out the one who always pays the true bill is the director..
touche..
Posted by KYriakos on January 11th, 2010I think that there are compelling reasons to explore both eras of Spider-Man; when he first starts out as a teenager and later on when he is a young adult, perhaps even into his 30’s, say, married to MJ and starting a family and the stresses and pressures that that places on him. I could envision a continuation of the Raimi/Maguire series in that manner. I could also see the teenage aspect being explore a la Smallville, but it seems too soon. We already had a very good origin story from Raimi, and I don’t really see how much better it can be told. I think there were a lot of good stories and villains that could have been used and along more psychological lines, such as Kraven. The arc where he “kills” and “buries” Spidey and takes his costume and becomes him is quite cool. There are a lot of things that could be done but with movies it costs a lot of money and you have to manage and soothe a lot of egos. With a comic book you just write and draw it.
Posted by Maopheus on January 11th, 2010It will definitely be interesting to see whether reboot does indeed equal restarting the character with a new origin story. If not and they want to have a new cast do some teen aged spiderman movies, I’m fine with that. Maybe some will be stinkers maybe some will be awesome. Look at the bond movies, same situation.
Posted by Justice on January 11th, 2010IMHO, this reboot is basically just a big “Fuck You†to Raimi from Sony. Sony could have easily just hired a new director and new cast.
Sony were the ones who ruined “Spider-Man 3″, and now they have complete control.
Posted by Matt Keith on January 11th, 2010Well, bad that Raimi left, but if the studio was going to interfere like on Spider-Man 3, it’s good he walked away. Of course, now they’ll probably interfere even more.
Posted by Brendan on January 11th, 2010I’m interested in seeing a new take, but the High School storyline was barely touched on in the 1st film, and that they totally changed Peter’s female relationships by making MJ the girl-next-door-of-his-dreams while skipping over Betty Brant & Liz Allen, then Gwen Stacey in his college years. He was even involved with Felicia Hardy long before he got involved with MJ.
I realize they changed it just to get to MJ quicker, but those previous relationships shaped Peter Parker. Maybe the reboot will set up the death of Gwen Stacey that we never got.
Oops, last post, 2nd paragraph should read:
Posted by Brendan on January 11th, 2010“I’m interested in seeing a new take, SINCE the High School storyline was barely touched on in the 1st film, and that they totally changed Peter’s female relationships…”
I also wanted to add that I hope they don’t make this into a crappy teen drama, or try to do the Wolverine thing of adding a bunch of random characters just so they can retain their rights.
i think what jay has said over and over applies to this..no matter what direction the franchise goes you still have the movies you like..with the possibility of more movies you ll like…but if they suck you still have the previous flicks so who cares…
and Raimi mightve been ready to move on to something else too…with this under his belt a new uncharted franchise would give him the control he had one the first flick…maybe..
Posted by Pete on January 11th, 2010If true, this is kind of ridiculous. I know I shouldn’t care, but the fact Hollywood can just pretend a bunch of movies never happened (in this case 2 very good and one ok movie) and make a whole new start, sort of irks me for whatever reason.
I was excited to see what Raimi would do with the fourth film, I was invested with Maguire as the Web Slinger, but now, unless they get someone very intriguing to direct and star, and they very well could, I have zero interest in this next series of films. I will be eagerly awaiting Drag Me To Hell 2 instead.
Posted by KeithTalent on January 11th, 2010Give us a new episode!
Posted by Burgus on January 12th, 2010Here’s exactly what happened when Raimi met with the head of Sony, a retarded monkey:
Sam Raimi: “Well, I’ve confirmed Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst for Spider-Man 4, and I’ve secured John Malkovich to play The Vulture, so it looks like I might be able to atone for the last one and make another great movie!”
Retarded Monkey: “OO! OO! OO!”
Sam Raimi: “Quite. The only thing is, I won’t have it ready for next summer like you wanted. It’ll take another year to do it properly because these things take time.”
Retarded Monkey: “AA! AA!”
Sam Raimi: “Indeed. Well we rushed Spider-Man 3, and you made me cram too many villains in, and look what happened there.”
Retarded Monkey squeezes out a huge poo on the desk.
Sam Raimi: “I’m sorry you feel that way, but what with my excellent track record as an innovative director capable of handling massive action sequences and nuanced emotional drama who’s made 2.5 billion dollars for this studio, I think you’ll agree I know what I’m doing.”
Retarded Monkey flings some of the poo at the wall.
Retarded Monkey: “EEK! EEK! OO! OO! AA!”
Sam Raimi: “What? You want to get rid of me and all the actors and start the franchise again with a completely different bunch of people and call it a reboot and put it out only five years after the last film and the script’s already written and it’s ‘gritty’ even though the comic was all about fun and bright colours and people don’t want a ‘gritty’ Spider-Man when they’ve got Batman, Bond and Potter all mooching about in huge piles of grit and could I close the door on the way out? Are you some kind of retarded monkey?”
Retarded Monkey eats the rest of the poo.
Sam Raimi: “Right you are. Good luck with that. I’m sure the audience can’t wait to see Zac Efron as Peter Parker and sit through another origin story.”
Retarded Monkey: “OO! OO! Do you have McG’s phone number?”
Sam Raimi leaves to make billions of dollars for another studio.
Posted by The Incredible Suit on January 12th, 2010Hhaha ..Zac Efron!?
Atlast spiderman its now Douche-Cool again!
Posted by KYriakos on January 12th, 2010My only hope is that they at least pick a villain that they haven’t done before. And please don’t go back to Green Goblin, he’s my least favorite villain.
Posted by Itchy-Finger on January 12th, 2010Yes! Finally Raimi drops Spider-Man! Out of 3 movies, he only made one worth watching, Spider-Man 2. And even that movie was overrated.
Posted by fuckingshits on January 12th, 2010But I’m glad he has left the movie. Never liked his direction of Spider-Man.
6. Didn’t it only take about 5-7 after the last Batman film before they decided that they would reboot the series?
Posted by fuckingshits on January 12th, 2010incredible suit is wrong on only one point..the studio monkey wouldve rubbed the shit all over himself as opposed to eating it..and i agree with f-shits..except the turnaround for the reboot was close to a decade..that is the point though..the entire franchise crashed and went dormant to open up a revisioning/reboot/new cash cow…when ya see the post about the new zemeckis yellow sub project and all the juice around avatar…kind of gives me a feel of where the studios are going…justice league motion capture 3D in IMAX…along with spiderman along with the eternals(any jack kirby fans in the room?)…
Posted by Pete on January 12th, 2010Sam Raimi did a mediocre job. Spiderman was a bore and number 2, even worse. I am glad Sony see fit to let someone else direct this franchise.
Posted by David on January 13th, 2010On one hand I’m sad because Sam Raimi and the cast did a great job with the first two movies and from the looks of the recent news it seemed like they were taking their time with this fourth one, even though I was on the fence with it at first. But on the other hand I see this as a good news. The third one was pretty bad and honestly I was getting a little tired of the cast and the overall feel of the movies.
With a fresh new cast and a great director behind the camera this new start might give us something good.
Posted by Napalm on January 14th, 2010OK…No one is a bigger Spidey fan than me…I am 45 years old, so I grew up with the WEBSLINGER…Raimi was a disaster from the first film…he/they screwed things up from the get go…no mechanical web-shooters…Spidey’s mask came off way too much in all three films…Spidey is much stronger than he was portrayed in the films…his Spider-sense should kick in more than it did in the films..The Goblin Costume was a joke in #1, you need to see the Goblin’s facial expressions to make him more menacing…Raimi and the cinematographer shot New York to look like Iowa to often…JK Simmon’s was too over-the-top in his portrayal of Jolly Jonah…Gwen Stacy and Betty Brant come way before Mary Jane…Kirsten Dunst is not HOT enough to portray Mary Jane…A properly costumed and menacing Goblin has to kill Gwen to further develop Peter/Spiderman’s psyche…The 1990’s animated series on FOX does Spidey more justice (as doe the new series on DisneyXD, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN)..the story arcs are true to the canon from the comic books and Peter’s brilliance as a young scientist is demonstrated in both animated series. The Raimi movies were so wrong on so many levels and SPIDERMAN 2 borrowed way too much from SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE in terms of pacing and sentiment. Makes me wish I went to film school…So yes REBOOT the franchise, it should not have taken 3 movies to get to VENOM, it took 20 plus years of comic book tales to get to VENOM and for that Spidey had to fight in the SECRET WARS and gained the symbiote on another planet, etc…I have no problem seeing the young, high school aged Peter Parker again and done correctly this time..Let Kevin Smith write and direct the new franchise.
Posted by Bobby Mann on January 17th, 2010The British Empire (or at least the readers of Empire magazine) have recently voted Spider-Man 3 as one of the 50 worst films ever. Ever! Considering how much money Spider-Man 3 made in the UK, that’s a lot of disappointed people.
Posted by Reed Farrington on January 29th, 2010i am the grates fan of spider man movies and i sow spider man 2 more than 20 times and spider man 3 more than 15 times .. i was egerly waiting for spider man 4 .. when i herd about the rubbish of raimi it was like some one punched me on my face .. please continue making spiderman movies …. requesting please
Posted by abhishek on May 17th, 2010Leave a Reply