Somehow this is the sort of proof that I needed to show that God exists and he is an all-powerful fanboy. Spider-Man 4 has been completely canceled as of today after official word of the film being put on hold earlier this week. Sony Pictures and series director Sam Raimi have been in discussions for the fourth, and possible fifth film for what seems like an eternity. So what is Sony going to do with the record breaking web slinger? It’s not as bad as it seems….
REBOOT!
That’s right. Good ol’ Sony is pressing the reboot button on the franchise so that they can deliver more Spider-Man flicks that can ruin the dignity and continuity of the character for years to come. Okay, that was harsh but Spider-Man 3 is unforgivably bad and the series definitely needed to be redone based on their films destruction of the character’s mythos and the utter disregard for the symbiote storyline, which is arguably the biggest highlight of Spider-Man’s fiction. The new web-slinger series is going to be a “gritty” and contemporary re-visioning of the Spider-Man with a focus on Peter Parker as a teenager in high school dealing with his powers and responsibility and Twilight fans and all those gritty elements of teen angst.
The entire cast and crew of the new films will be hand picked by Sony so that they can have the best creative team possible to make the franchise just as successful as it has been under the direction of Sam Raimi. This means that the entire cast will be considerably younger than the ensemble lead by Tobey MacGuire. Sony better reflect on who they want to helm these next movies as there have been way too many capable directors hopping on board hero films without a nerd mindset. Raimi said repeatedly that he hated the character of Venom which ultimately led to the worst depiction possible and years of nightmares for the comic book community. However, Marvel Studios has stepped in to guide Sony on their way down this new rabbit hole. If they somehow influence the creative control of the character then this new series will probably be better than Raimi’s because people involved will love the mythos entirely and not just partially.
If the stars align properly and Marvel pushes Sony enough, then I can totally see Brian Michael Bendis helping with the new scripts. Bendis has been writing Ultimate Spider-Man for years now and he still handles the title more like a mother cradles her infant. Though many of the storylines and character designs in the Ultimate version of the character are questionable, Bendis knows the character inside and out. Especially since this is suppose to take place when Peter is a teenager, which is something that Ultimate and this new franchise has in common. Hopefully both companies see the strengths in each other and use their connections to their advantage to deliver one hell of an experience for Spider-Man fans and if they have a little time left, they can appeal to the mass audiences too.
This new Spider-Man franchise is scheduled to swing its way into theaters in 2012. dun dun dun!
I think I’m going to let myself get excited about this!
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