Seems that Spiderman will be put on hold for his fourth installment as the studio is sitting on an unfinished script and seems to have hit a wall with the direction.
And by direction I mean Director. And in this case (if its accurate) I am siding with the Director.
Apparently, Raimi really wants to include Vulture as the main villain, a character he wanted introduced in the last Spidey adventure where he was instead told to (mis)use Venom. Sony, on the other hand, isn’t interested in having that character involved at all. The source says that Sony instead wants to use whatever character is selling best in the books.
I can see the relevance of using a character that is selling the books. Not that the comics are in direct line with the books, but there is certainly an overlap. Walk into a comic shop near the release of a big screen adaptation of that character and try to spot that book… the place will be flooded with it – and all related merchandise.
But what villian is big in the Spidey books right now? Will that character still be big by the time Spidey 4 hits the screens?
What’s wrong with Sony having a sit down with the Marvel peeps and saying “Look, we want to release Spiderman 4 in 2012… any chance you can have a storyline that involves the Vulture in it around then? Raimi really wants to use him and it would tie in well for sales and marketing.”
I think the Vulture would be a great villain to use. And if the rumoured John Malkovich plays him? Even better! And I am still clinging to the hope that the “Vultress” thing was just a red herring to play away from a very obvious Anne Hathaway/Black Cat casting rumour.
This just reeks of how Sony stuck their corporate noses in Raimi’s Sandman story and forced him to rush into a sloppy Venom.
