SPIDER-MAN 4 (2011) - PREVIEW

Spider-Man 4 (2011)

Starring: Tobey Maguire
Director: Sam Raimi
Rated: Unrated
U.S. Opening Date: May 2011

According to the latest rumors Spider-man 4 and 5 will be shot back-to-back not just to save costs, but because it is so difficult to get “everybody” back together.

And just who is “everybody”?

Well, despite rumors about the next movie being a ”reboot” featuring Jake Gyllenhaal (the Donnie Darko star who were all set to replace Tobey Maguire when the actor suffered from some back injuries during the making of a previous installment in the franchise as Peter Parker/Spider-man) it seems that both Maguire and Kirstin Dunst as his girlfriend Mary Jane will return.

Army of Darkness director Sam Raimi who directed all the previous movies in the franchise will be back in the director’s chair as well.

There has been much speculation about who the next villain/s might be, with The Lizard being a favorite. In previous interviews director Raimi has name-dropped the Sinister Six and Electro. Expect this to be a closely guarded secret for a while to come, with loads of misinformation being bandied about.

According to informed sources Venom will however not be returning (word has it that this character will have its own live-action spin-off movie title – screenwriters are already at work on this). Nor will Spider-man 4 be “dark” – despite the whole Dark Knight thing – which is good news. Hey, this is Spider-man after all!

To be honest we wouldn’t have minded an all-new creative crew and cast for any future Spider-man movie. While we don’t fall into the “we hate Spider-man 3” camp, we do believe that a tighter, less bloated movie will serve the franchise better. After all, there were a lot of disappointed little tykes with poor bladder control out there who would liked to have seen a more action-packed Spider-man movie instead of all that soap opera drama.

One tip for Hollywood: how about getting some Marvel comic writers into the action this time round? We’re in particular thinking of Babylon 5 creator-turned-comic book writer J. Michael Straczynski here. In spite of all that One More Day malarkey Straczynski did a pretty decent run on the character with some crackling humorous dialogue and displayed the necessary degree of levity for this character. Oh, and another word of advice: try keeping things at about 100 minutes at the most. After all, this is Spider-man, not War & Peace . . .

UPDATE (10 November 2009): Latest rumors have it that Rachel McAdams (Time Traveler's Wife, Sherlock Holmes) is in negotiations to play Black Cat!

UPDATE (26 Oct 2009): Lizard for Spider-man 4?

UPDATE (12 Oct 2009): Spider-man 4 to start filming March 2010

UPDATE (8 Oct 2009): Spider-man 4 writer Gary Ross will be also be writing a Venom spin-off movie!