Spider-Man 4-5 Movie news

[Natrix]

Sounds like parts 5 & 6 are being written as a possible franchise reboot to shoot back to back if Raimi, Maguire and Dunst leave the franchise after part 4.

As Sony Pictures Entertainment preps a fourth installment of "Spider-Man" to begin production early next year, the studio has quietly engaged screenwriter James Vanderbilt to pen "Spider-Man 5" and "Spider-Man 6."

Vanderbilt was the first writer on "Spider-Man 4." Director Sam Raimi brought on "Rabbit Hole" playwright David Lindsay-Abaire to rewrite him, and Gary Ross is now rewriting that script. The studio is enthusiastic about where it stands as the picture begins prepping for an early 2010 production start for a May 2011 release.

Raimi didn't embrace all of Vanderbilt's ideas, but execs at Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios have. Vanderbilt has been hired to pen the fifth and sixth movies, which have an interconnected storyline. That's what was originally discussed when Vanderbilt signed on to write "Spider-Man 4," but the idea of shooting a fourth and fifth film back to back with the original cast was scrapped.

Sources said it was unclear whether Raimi, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst will be back. If they aren't, Vanderbilt's script would be the blueprint for a franchise reboot. After committing to his fourth "Spider-Man" film, Raimi signed on to direct a new franchise based on the massively multiplayer role-playing online computer game "World of Warcraft" for Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Maguire and Dunst were locked into the first three pictures and made a new deal for "Spider-Man 4." It's unclear how long they want to continue with the series.

Then again, Raimi was initially doubtful for "Spider-Man 4" because he expected to direct "The Hobbit," but returned after Guillermo del Toro got the job.

Why is Vanderbilt writing when so many variables are undecided?

The most important thing is for Sony to prime the "Spider-Man" pump more frequently. The lapse between films has grown with each blockbuster. The second film came only two years after the first, but it took three years for a third installment, and four years will have passed when "Spider-Man 4" opens in summer 2011.

Sony Pictures toppers Amy Pascal and Michael Lynton may well have a new franchise following last weekend's strong opening of "District 9." And after "Angels and Demons" grossed some $500 million worldwide, they will certainly move forward and extend the "Da Vinci Code" franchise with an adaptation of Dan Brown's fall publishing release, "The Lost Symbol." But "Spider-Man" remains the studio's most important film franchise, and Sony doesn't want to wait half a decade for the next outing.

While the "Spider-Man" movie business is booming, Sony has widenedits footprint on the franchise and become one of the investors in the Broadway musical version of the webslinger; the "Spider-Man, Turn off the Dark" tuner recently experienced a funding hiccup on the way to a planned March premiere.

Although there's been speculation that the show, which will cost upward of $35 million to produce, may not get off the ground, the project is too important to the "Spider-Man" partners to be tabled, sources said. The musical has "The Lion King" director Julie Taymor and songs by U2's Bono and the Edge.

Vanderbilt's most recent script credits are the Sylvain White-directed "The Losers" for Warner Bros. and David Fincher's "Zodiac."

He's repped by WME and Fuse Entertainment.

We've known for some time that Sam Raimi had brought in Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst for yet another sequel to his Spider-Man franchise. However, Variety is now reporting that Sony has brought in screenwriter James Vanderbilt to pen what would be the FIFTH and SIXTH Spider-Man films.

That, however is not the most notable tidbit of news with this situation. Things seem to be pointing in the direction that Sony is entertaining the possibility of Vanderbilt's films being the first of a franchise reboot for Spidey.

Bringing merit to this rumor, are a few things:

First, is the fact that (while they obviously cannot play these characters forever), Maguire and Dunst are not confirmed for any wall-crawling project beyond the upcoming Spider-Man 4. Also, the plans of director, Sam Raimi may have revealed themselves with the news that he will direct the feature film adaptation of World of Warcraft. (And while it may not be a comedy, I will be disappointed if there are no "Leeroy" references.)

Secondly, James Vanderbilt was initially hired by Sony to pen the Spider-Man 4 script. However, Sam Raimi was apparently not satisfied with it, and used his directorial clout to have it re-written by David Lindsay-Abaire. (In a move that may have rubbed Sony the wrong way.) The fact that Sony has brought Vanderbilt back to the table, seems to imply that Raimi will not be a factor in those fifth and sixth films.

I think I speak for fans everywhere when I say, "REBOOT, PLEASE." Let's move forward and get something more conducive to the atmosphere of the current Marvel films that Paramount is putting out there. Make a stronger story, work out some deals, and get some crossover potential. Sure, Raimi's films had their strong points (Spider-Man 2 will always be a great film in its own right), however, with Spider-Man 3, the franchise made the critical mistake of trying to wrap-up its storylines into a neat little package, when there was just too much going on. They may have gotten away with it in the first two films, but "screwing up Venom" might as well be the broken 11th Commandment.

A new Spidey franchise that is structured to be told in a serial manner, with villains that are a bit more faithful to source material (while obviously injecting some modern aesthetic sensibilities) will practically make itself. So, NO Green Goblin in metal gimp suits, NO cheap attempts to garner sympathy towards supervillains with sick daughters, and NO supervillain deaths (at least not in the first film.)

Want to make it right? Peter needs to fall in love with, and eventually lose Gwen Stacy BEFORE he gets with Mary-Jane. (Anything otherwise would be sacrilege.) Eddie Brock needs to be established as a professional rival of Peter's before we even think about Venom. Also, Harry Osborne's struggles with drug addiction (which changed the face of comics in the early 70's) needs to be documented in more detail. I could go on...

 

[Agent0028]

I thought they were doing 4 and 5 as part of one arc.

 

[Darth Snoopy]

Geez...we haven't evern gotten SM 4 & 5 and they're already wanting a reboot?

 

[JC]

Well I'm pretty certain Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst won't be back for Spidey 5 and 6, since they have said before that they would only continue doing the franchise if Sam Raimi came back to direct, but he's gonna be doing War of Warcraft, so, that's like him pretty much saying no more after 4......So let's enjoy 4, cause we could witness a potential train wreck of 5 and 6 if they get different actors to play the roles...

 

[Hecubus]

didnt we already see that trainwreck? A reboot is the only way to go now, IMO...

 

[Deckard]

didnt we already see that trainwreck? A reboot is the only way to go now, IMO...

I agree.

Why are we wasting 3 years to let this hack director take another slapstick shot at Spiderman?

He and the now 48 year old looking Tobey Maguire have made it clear they don't want to do anything past this one. And Kirsten "Down Syndrome" Dunst was never really that pretty, her nipples just filmed well in dark wet alleys.

Start over already so I don't end up with something called Spiderman 5 featuring Zack Effron battling retarded villains they didn't ruin yet like Terrible Tinkerer, or Jack O Lantern.

 

[praxitas]

hack director

sacrilege ...

Sam Raimi is far from a hack director. I as recall I thought he was force fed having to include all the villians and it didn't turn out that well. The first two movies were great flicks imo. After the last movies debacle I expect another great flick to ride off into the sunset if this the end of the run for Sam and the gang.

 

[Agent0028]

I agree, the first two were very good. Not fair to criticize him on the turn out of the third. Especially since he was pushed into including Venom. Okay, so maybe some people didn't like the first two and could justifiably say he's a hack because of that. But I would counter that with how well received the first two movies were.

I also think its silly to say we need a reboot just because 3 turned out subpar. I don't need another origin story and I don't need anything that reboots anything in the two previous movies. The only way I'll take a reboot is if its done by Marvel and they're taking him to his high school teenage roots.

 

[Deckard]

I only like Evil Dead.

Evil Dead 2 is nothing more then a remake to me really with him going out of control and putting slapstick into it. And really he already made an even lower budget of Evil Dead before that to get investors.

So he remade the same movie 3 times and is involved with the rumored remake of it again. The exact same movie 4 times, Yea hes not a hack...

I didn't like alot of elements of SM or SM2, Parker is a loser but Raimi goes overboard. There are dance sequences and he sings and the whole sunshine song in 2. He doesn't understand the characters at all.

The Harry relationship was ruined, which IMO hurts it in 1 and 2. He made Peter an emo goth kid that crys ALOT. No, I mean Alot. Think about it. Every movie he crys. He kills all the villains and Sandman ended up being cool and a friend to Peter? And what do they do with Gwen Stacy now? Why is she even in it if there aren't any Goblins left to kill her.

Drag me to Hell is waaaay overrated. Its an improvement from SM3 and thats all it is. I dont get this love and loyalty to him at all.

 

[JC]

No I agree with you guys, Sam is a very good director, and I loved Spidey 1 and 2....it's just a shame that he didn't have more control of the third for some reason, but that's in the past...

So I'm particularly looking forward to the fourth one, as this may be the last one with the original gang, as I really can't see a good Spidey movie without Tobey, Kirsten and Sam behind the camera, but that's just my opinion, we'll see what they do...In the mean time bring on Spidey 4 Sam!

 

[Deckard]

Btw, Am I the only one who thinks its odd that Spiderman is 35 and only in his 4th year of college?

 

[Darth Snoopy]

sacrilege ...

Sam Raimi is far from a hack director. I as recall I thought he was force fed having to include all the villians and it didn't turn out that well. The first two movies were great flicks imo. After the last movies debacle I expect another great flick to ride off into the sunset if this the end of the run for Sam and the gang.

I agree, the first two were very good. Not fair to criticize him on the turn out of the third. Especially since he was pushed into including Venom. Okay, so maybe some people didn't like the first two and could justifiably say he's a hack because of that. But I would counter that with how well received the first two movies were.

I also think its silly to say we need a reboot just because 3 turned out subpar. I don't need another origin story and I don't need anything that reboots anything in the two previous movies. The only way I'll take a reboot is if its done by Marvel and they're taking him to his high school teenage roots.

No I agree with you guys, Sam is a very good director, and I loved Spidey 1 and 2....it's just a shame that he didn't have more control of the third for some reason, but that's in the past...

So I'm particularly looking forward to the fourth one, as this may be the last one with the original gang, as I really can't see a good Spidey movie without Tobey, Kirsten and Sam behind the camera, but that's just my opinion, we'll see what they do...In the mean time bring on Spidey 4 Sam!

Ditto, guys.

I agree that Sam Raimi is a very good director and I really think that rebooting now is a very poor decision.

I wish Sony wasn't involved with the franchise at all.

 

[OSCORP]

I agree.

Why are we wasting 3 years to let this hack director take another slapstick shot at Spiderman?

He and the now 48 year old looking Tobey Maguire have made it clear they don't want to do anything past this one. And Kirsten "Down Syndrome" Dunst was never really that pretty, her nipples just filmed well in dark wet alleys.

Start over already so I don't end up with something called Spiderman 5 featuring Zack Effron battling retarded villains they didn't ruin yet like Terrible Tinkerer, or Jack O Lantern.

Been a long time since i seen that much fail in a post.

Anyways, if it is to be rebooted after 4 so be it. I don't expect the same actors/directors to do 6 or 9 or how ever many films.

 

[torque6]

yea, probably a reboot.

 

[Deckard]

Been a long time since i seen that much fail in a post.

Forgive me, I'm over the age of 13, where does the fail thing actually come from? Did you guys all fail out of school or something?

 

[HugeBadWolf]

Hack Director?
Do you have much directing experience yourself?
It's easy to critisice (defo easier to to do, than spell ), but you have to stop and ask yourself, "Could I have done it any better?" There's parts of S3 I didn't like, but, I realise that Mr Raimi had his hand forced in alot of the decision making and the end product was better than we could have hoped for.


Looking FW to no.4 whatever happens (as long as it's not Channing Tatum )

Cheers,
Doug

 

[POWER1010]

Been a long time since i seen that much fail in a post.

 

[gorkas123]

Btw, Am I the only one who thinks its odd that Spiderman is 35 and only in his 4th year of college?

After Beverly Hills 90210, everything's possible... (remember Luke Perry as a 16 year old kid, it was Abe Simpson with some more hair)...

 

[grinningsmile]

A hack director, you are talking about spiderman 3 not x-men 3 right, because if you were talking about ratner then i'd be 100% behind you, but a director who's three spiderman films are still sitting pretty in the top 20 highest grossing films of all time, two of the three being critically and publicly well recieved, and even the third despite the obvious problems that have been well documented, wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been. And a director who out of the spiderman franchise has made some cracking films (a simple plan, drag me to hell, evil dead 1-3) so a director not to your tastes maybe, but a hack......no way, that'd be like saying james cameron is a hack because not everyone liked his new avatar trailer.

 

[Deckard]

A hack director, you are talking about spiderman 3 not x-men 3 right, because if you were talking about ratner then i'd be 100% behind you, but a director who's three spiderman films are still sitting pretty in the top 20 highest grossing films of all time, two of the three being critically and publicly well recieved, and even the third despite the obvious problems that have been well documented, wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been. And a director who out of the spiderman franchise has made some cracking films (a simple plan, drag me to hell, evil dead 1-3) so a director not to your tastes maybe, but a hack......no way, that'd be like saying james cameron is a hack because not everyone liked his new avatar trailer.

All that grossing blah blah means nothing to me about what makes a movie good.

The SW prequels grossed a ton, they were garbage and Lucas is a hack.

Most really good cult films, in fact some of what are considered the best films ever, and certainly at least in their own generes were flops. 2001 : A Space Odyssey, The Thing, even Watchmen.

He had some good flicks, sure. But I don't like him anymore.

As I said hes working on remaking the same exact movie with the same characters by the same name for the 4th time now and IMO, risking hurting his own classic in the process. For what? Why remake Evil Dead again? It's either money or he's out of ideas. Which?

And like I said before, the writing and character understanding is weak, Mary Jane has to be the most retarded person on the face of the earth. Find someone else whos been kidnapped that many times. Can he not come up with a new plot device to drive the spidey/villain relationship? And he needed to connect Sandman to Uncle Ben and ruin both characters in the process, hes a hack. I stand by it.

And dont give me this he got bullied into Venom bs, he should have known better, hes a professional. You think Kubrick or Scorsese are gonna do a rewrite because of some fat ass kids dressed like stormtroopers. By making that arguement you strengthen my case.