Spidey *4* Info thread????????

[august]

Believe it or not..... just as # 3 was given the greenlight before # 2 even opened (and I think the same thing happened with 1 and 2) there are now fairly legit reports of talks beginning on # 4. Sam, Tobey and Kirsten are always asked about this in interviews, and the latter two usually say "well, it would depend if Sam were doing it," while Sam usually is non-committal, saying that he suspects the franchise will go on, but that he feels he's told the story he wanted to in the first three.

But...from Variety, via Sci-Fi Wire:

Columbia Pictures has begun negotiating with Spider-Man writer David Koepp to write the script for a fourth installment....

Koepp, who most recently wrote the draft of a fourth Indiana Jones movie that got George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford to reteam for Paramount, wrote the original 2002 Spidey film that launched the studio's most lucrative franchise. Alvin Sargent wrote the second and third installments...

If a fourth Spider-Man movie is to be made, new deals will have to be struck with stars Tobey Maguire, Kirstin Dunst and James Franco, along with Raimi if he decides to return to direct a fourth film. The studio would release the sequel in 2009 or 2010.

[august]

Alas, from Sci-Fi Wire, Kirsten Dunst has said she doesn't see it happening soon:

... Dunst said at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas: "Well, I think [director] Sam [Raimi] has dedicated so much of his life, like more than 10 years, to the Spider-Man franchise with so much passion and love, the man is burnt out at this time. I think he needs a long vacation to put his creativity towards something else, and then maybe we'll revisit it."

Told that Sony Pictures has ordered a fourth script and was willing to move ahead with or without Raimi, Dunst added: "Do they want to give Sam Raimi a heart attack? That's evil. Sorry, that's not happening anytime soon. I would just say no for Sam's sake so that he can have a break. We would all do it together, because Sam, Tobey [Maguire] and I are a team now, but there's no way it's going to happen very soon. I just can't imagine that. We don't have the story to tell right now...."

[august]

Kirsten continues to mess with our minds:

Tobey Maguire has hinted that the upcoming “Spider-Man” flick will be his Spidey swansong, but his co-star Kirsten Dunst says that’s just not true. The actress told Movies.com columnist Jeanne Wolf that Maguire is “just messing with you guys.” And she also promises to be with the series for at least two more films - if director Sam Raimi and Maguire are up for it.

[august]

True to form, they continue to generate buzz about another movie before the current one has even opened. From Sci-FiWire:

Tobey Maguire.... told SCI FI Wire in February that he remained open to a fourth film, with reservations.

....

Maguire is not contractually bound to do a fourth film.

"Well, it's possible that we make another movie," Maguire said ... "It all depends on if there's a story worth telling. I feel very proud of the three movies that we've made. I feel like the stories all deserve to be told, and, you know, if they come up with a good movie, and the whole team wants to get back together, and we feel like we can make a good movie that's worth making, then I'm up for it."

His co-star, Kirsten Dunst ...added: "I would work with Sam on any movie he wanted to work on it with me, because I just adore that man."

For his part, Raimi hasn't said one way or another whether he'd do another movie...

[august]

More conflicting news, from Reuters, quoting this week's Entertainment Weekly:

... Kirsten Dunst says a sequel without her, co-star Tobey Maguire and director Sam Raimi would be a box office flop. {i.e. she's starting the ball rolling for Sony/Columbia to offer them all so much $$ they can't possibly refuse it.}

Entertainment Weekly magazine on Monday cited Raimi as confirming a long-held Hollywood rumor that he might take the directing reins on a movie version of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" if Peter Jackson is not eventually hired. {"confirming a rumor that he might..... if ...." OK, Sam, how much more vague can we get !}

Separately Dunst told Entertainment Weekly that if that happens, a "Spider-Man 4" without Raimi, her and Maguire .... would be "disrespectful to the whole team."

"Audiences aren't stupid. It'd be a big flop without me, Tobey or Sam," Dunst said in a story posted on the celebrity magazine's website, ew.com.

....

Entertainment Weekly asked Raimi if he might direct "The Hobbit" instead of Jackson...

"I don't know what's going to happen next for me right now," Raimi said. "First and foremost, those are Peter Jackson and Bob Shaye's films. If Peter didn't want to do it, and Bob wanted me to do it -- and they were both okay with me picking up the reins -- that would be great."

[august]

This seems to be prety durned official, from Yahoo News:

Though 'Spider-Man 3' is yet to hit the theatres, director Sam Raimi announced that Sony Pictures will be making the fourth, fifth and sixth instalment of the popular film.

Speaking at a Los Angeles press junket, Raimi said he hasn't had time to think of any involvement and he doesn't want to presume Sony would want him to direct.

'It'd be very hard to say goodbye to 'Spider Man',' he said.

Meanwhile, the word has been going around that Raimi is seriously thinking about making 'The Hobbit'.

.....

For Raimi to direct 'The Hobbit' would mean that Columbia is faced with the choice of either pushing back its production schedule for 'Spider-Man 4' or finding themselves a new director.

[august]

And the latest from Sci-Fi Wire, in two separate articles from the same interview,here and here.

Sam Raimi ... told SCI FI Wire that the door is open to his helming a fourth film, but only under certain conditions. "For me to come back, I'd have to—when I'm done with all of this—have a breather and then look at the character and say, 'Where does he next have to grow to? Where can he now develop in a meaningful way?'"

........

"And if I could recognize, honestly, a real deficit that he and we could fashion a story [around], ... where this young man could learn his next life lesson in a meaningful way, and that we could make good story out of it, then I would die to direct the picture. ... I honestly don't think I could do a good job unless I understood that about Peter for the fourth one. That's why I can't actually answer that question, either."

.........

..... Raimi confirmed .... that he has spoken with New Line Cinema honcho Robert Shaye about helming The Hobbit .... but only once and only informally. "I spoke to him once, so it's a little more overblown I think .... That's why I don't want to pretend that it's bigger than it is. I had one conversation about the possibility of it, and that's really where it's at."

Similar AP article:

"I know there'll be a `Spider-Man 4, 5 and 6,'" said writer-director Raimi, the filmmaker behind the first three. "I just won't be the guy that'll probably write the story, because I've got to step away from it to clear my head."

"My hope is that Sam and Tobey and Kirsten will want to come back for more," said Amy Pascal, Sony co-chairwoman. "They can make as many `Spider-Man' movies with me as they want to."

If Raimi, Maguire and Dunst decided against it, "then I'll be making `Spider-Man' movies," Pascal said, with other actors and filmmakers. "We will continue to make them at the studio."

.....

"If there was something within the character, Peter Parker where we last left him, that told us where he next had to go, what he next had to learn as a human being to become a fuller person, and somebody could fashion a story around that idea that was intriguing, engaging, interesting — you couldn't keep me from it," Raimi said.

"I just can't think about that right now. That's really the truth of it."

....

"Sam really is the heart of these movies. So I can't imagine it without him. We have a fantastic shorthand and a great relationship. To me, he is these movies," Maguire said. "A lot of people contribute a lot of great things, but to me, Sam is the core of it. The character of the stories lives in his gut."

For Dunst, the future of Spider-Man hinges on "Sam and Tobey and me and a good script and a different kind of direction. Something fresh that's different for all of us," she said. "We resolve a lot of things in this film, and so it's really an end to this trilogy. It feels like an end."

.......

"Spider-Man" producer Laura Ziskin said the caretakers of the franchise would sit down with Sony executives in mid-May, once the film opens, to discuss what to do next. It would take a minimum of three years to get another film ready, she said.

"We'd love to have Sam, we'd love to have Tobey, we'd love to have Kirsten. We'd like to keep the team. But Spider-Man is bigger than all of us," said Avi Arad, a producer on the "Spider-Man" films who until last year also headed Marvel Studios.

"It's early to say, but you can totally assume that Spider-Man will endure and thrive and will continue," Arad said. "There's so many stories to tell. Over 40 years of stories. We only told three."

Raimi agreed that with or without him, Maguire and Dunst, Spider-Man should live on in future films....

And then a very similar one at the Detroit Free Press.

[august]

Basically no news could either be good or bad news. Sam did an interview with MTV News in which he answered no questions at all. About the 4th movie anway.

Excerpts:

As of this week, "Spider-Man 3" is the 11th-highest-grossing film worldwide of all time — and like its web-headed hero, it's still climbing. The fans have spoken, the critics have been silenced and there's plenty more Peter Parker to come.

But in his first post-"Spidey 3" interview, series director Sam Raimi went out of his way to leave the door open for someone else to take the reins.

"Sony Pictures is going to be making many more 'Spider-Man' pictures," Raimi told MTV News Friday night. "I just don't know what [my] future holds yet."

...

"If I can't find the right story that would work for me and that I could tell really well, I would like someone else to tell that story," he said of the already-announced "Spider-Man 4."

Amending his statement, he added, "But if it's a great story and Sony will bring me back to the screen, I would love to."

....

Ultimately, if Sony considers the price tag too high for another Raimi/Maguire/Dunst collaboration, then the negotiations would turn to keeping Raimi onboard as a producer only. "I would still hope that Sony would offer it to me [to direct] first," he said. "But that is not my place to say; it would be more about if Sony decided not to go with me. If not, it would be really up to them to come to a solution [for me to still be involved as a producer]."

[august]

We're still in the "no news (possibly) is good news" realm. While plugging "30 Days of Night" at Comic Con, Sam was asked about a 4th Spidey film, and/or his next project to direct, and he simply said "I don't have any plans."

Back on on July 10th, the Hollywood Reporter apparently claimed that Sam was set to meet with producer Laura Ziskin and Sony execs sometime between then and now, and Sam seems to have confirmed that when he told EmpireOnline:

"I want to help contribute to the production... I don't know if I'll just be a producer on it but if I can work with the writer in such a way so that directing would be right for me, I don't know. We've had our first meeting on Spider-Man 4 and we're looking for the writer."

[august]

"... Sam Raimi told reporters that he's met with Spider-Man producers about a new direction for the series, leaving open the possibility he'll helm a fourth installment.

...

"Right now, Sony is meeting with different writers to try and bring a fresh, new story and approach to the Spider-Man franchise," Raimi said...

Raimi added that he would consider directing the fourth film but it would "depend on a lot of things." "Sony would have to ask me to do it, and the story would have to work," he said. "Because I don't think I just know the answer to that right now. Except it would be great—because I love Spider-Man—if we could find the right story. But whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be a great story. A lot of people are working very hard to work on a really good story right now."



Read the rest at Sci-Fi Wire.

[august]

Another possible writer on board? From the Hollywood Reporter:

The writer of the serial-killer thriller "Zodiac" has been hired to write the screenplay for "Spider-Man 4."

James Vanderbilt takes over from David Koepp, who worked on the first two installments of Columbia Pictures' billion-dollar franchise, and returned to write a draft of "Spider-Man 4."

....

Several writers were being considered for the fourth installment, and Vanderbilt apparently was chosen for his character-driven approach to the story rather than a focus on special effects.

Previous credits include screenplays for The Rundown, Basic and Darkness Falls.

[assilem brandywine]

I really hope he decides to put "The Lizard" in this one. Already introduced Curt Connors, after all.
Incidently, I've written some fanfic about The Lizard's teenaged clone. One of my favorite OC's.

[august]

From an interview at Comic Book Resources:

Q: Do you have any inclination yet towards whether you’d like to produce or direct the next Spider-Man movie, or is too early to call?

Sam: I think that’s going to be up to Sony Pictures, and I think that it’s too early for them to say, actually. But currently I’m working on… well, not now, but as soon as the writers strike’s over… I’m going to begin working with a writer on the screenplay.

Q: Is it important to you that the story follows on from the first three? I mean, how important is internal continuity to you? Can you go Evil Dead-style and change details a little bit, maybe change the story up a little bit?

Sam: If I was writing it I would have a very strong opinion about that, but we’re hiring a writer to come up with his own take. Sony was willing to go either way, we’ll just have to wait and see what the writer comes up with. I think anything’s possible, though.

I mean, there’s been so many different versions, it doesn’t have to follow the movies that we’ve made. I’d very much like to see Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, so I have a personal interest in that, but certainly anything’s possible. Spider-Man’s such a big character in the comic books that he could endure a lot of different interpretations. You could start over or you could start with a different aspect of the story than I’ve focused on in the pictures I’ve made, we’ll just have to wait and see what the writer comes up with.

...............

Q: As your films become more successful, and connect with more people, have they also become more personal, in a strange kind of way? Because to me, each new Spider-Man film, for example, feels more like a Sam Raimi film than the last one.

Sam: Well, you know, when I first started making the Spider-Man films, I tried to stay as true to the comic book as possible, and not push my own personal styles or tastes onto the film. I really just tried to make something that was true to the comic book, and true to the idea of the comic book. And then, when it came time to make a sequel to that film… well, then I had a different master I had to follow, I had to make a sequel to the film, not the comic book. So it took on a little bit more of a filmic DNA, and therefore maybe more of what I do. And maybe that process just kept happening. That’s the best I can say.

......

Q: As fans of the original source material, is there a particular villain that you and Rob would like to see in future Spider-Man movies?

Rob (Sam's producing partner) : I wanna see Spider-Man Vs Predator!

Sam: I’m trying to not voice an opinion on that, because I’m trying to let the new writer proceed unmolested by me. I want somebody who’s got a really fresh take on the material, and I think that’s what’s best. I’m afraid to prejudice the decision making process right now by forcing my own desires upon them.

[august]

This seems highly suspicious, but JoBlo.com is reporting that Jake Gyllenhall is in talks to take over the role of peter in a Spidey 4 film.

....after checking with 3 different sources at the studio .... Jake has been meeting with Sony execs for the past few weeks, and apparently agreed to take on the role, after Maguire said that he was "moving on" from the part. No word on whether or not Sam Raimi will continue on as the director, but he will definitely be producing the film, and developing its storyline which will apparently be delving further into the Venom storyline, as well as the Lizard or possibly Electro.

....

The studio is now fast-tracking the next installment of the SPIDER-MAN series, despite many negative reviews for SPIDER-MAN 3, and is apparently considering hiring Akiva Goldsman as the screenwriter or McG as the director (unless Brett Ratner is available).

He certainly looks enough like Tobey, especially if it follows a grown up Spidey. This is not a tremendously reliable site, and what it probably means, however, is that Jake G.'s agent was putting his name forward in case it was needed.

[august]

SciFi Wire is quoting Latino Review (where I always go to get my superhero movie news ) which in turn reported a "rumor" that Sony and producers Laura Ziskin and Grant Curtis are contemplating Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) or Michael Angarano (Forbidden Kingdom) "to take over the title role in future Spider-Man films if Tobey Maguire isn't available."

[august]

Wondering BTW if Patrick Fugit has a brother named Tempus.

In the news that doesn't actually contain any real new news department, Sci-Fi Wire has this update from Sam:

... Raimi (is) waiting on a script ... from writer James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Rundown) before deciding whether to helm it, though he'd like to.

"Right now James Vanderbilt is writing the script....I think it's going to be done in a few months. I'm hoping it's as great as our discussions were about it and hoping it feels right for me, because I love Spider-Man, and I'm hoping I'm well-enough rested to, like, really embrace it and hoping that Sony wants me at that time to direct it. So if all those things come together, I would love, love to do it....

Asked whether he'd recast the roles of Peter Parker or Mary Jane Watson--who have each moved on to other projects--Raimi demurred. "Well, I hate to recast anybody in the picture," he said...... "It's like the new Darren [who was recast during the run of the 1960s TV series Bewitched].... So I don't know. I can't imagine that."

[august]

From that same department ...

... a proposed fourth installment in the blockbuster film franchise based on the Marvel comics is still in the very early stages.

"I'm waiting for the script to come in," Raimi said... at Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 24. "I'm going to be a producer on it, and I'm waiting to see the script."

.....

Screenwriter James Vanderbilt (Zodiac) is attached as the scribe for the fourth sequel, which is already slated for a 2011 release.

"I don't want to be presumptuous, so we'll see if Columbia Pictures is going to offer me the [directing] job," Raimi said, with typical modesty. "I'm just waiting for all those things to take place."

[Michael]

It appears that Spider-man 4 is due out in 2011.

[Boomstick]

Yes, I was on eBay yesterday and they had a graphic on their main page for an auction to "meet the stars of Spider-Man 4!"

Which is comical, because you don't really know what you're bidding on, at this point. I haven't seen any casting.

Villains rumored are Lizard, Carnage, Electro, Vulture. I'd be surprised to see them do Carnage, since he's so similar to Venom. Vulture is kind of lame, so I'd say the safe money's on Lizard and Electro. Although it could be time for Hobgoblin?

I think they'd do well to recast the main stars entirely at this point. Get someone that's younger for Peter Parker, and someone much more likable for Mary Jane.

[Michael]

No Tobey and Kirsten? :gasp: (Rats. We don't have a :gasp: icon).

ON EDIT:

No Tobey and Kirsten?