Sam Raimi hit the interview circuit and hit up a few places to talk about Spiderman 4.
Raimi says that he and the production team are “in the earliest stages of working with the writer, trying to work out a story.” He added that they are just working on the fourth installment and not also a fifth film. Previous reports had claimed that Sony Pictures would be making the fourth and fifth movies at the same time, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
The helmer said that they are closing in on Spider-Man’s adversary or adversaries for the fourth pic. “All the characters or villains or villains, whatever we decide to do will be from Stan Lee’s creations or those that came after him,” he said.
And will Kirsten Dunst return as Mary Jane Watson? If it was up to Raimi, definitely: “I’m hoping she’ll be in it and I’m planning on having a story with her in it… It wouldn’t be the Spider-Man series without her.”
I know everyone will land on Dunst returning as MJ. I really don’t mind her as Mary Jane, my concern with her is that they focus too much of the story on her. MJ in the books was the damsel in distress and some momentary distraction to ground Peter’s life with a romance. But as much as Spiderman’s story has always been about his struggle with his secret identity and trying to juggle his private life and still be the hero. Those are elements of his character, but they shoudln’t be the focal point.
Mary Jane is a fine addition to the series, they just need to redirect the focus away from emo-peter, and give us a Spiderman story with some side story, not all side story with a little Spiderman.
I suspect we will finally see the evolution of Dr Connors (mentioned more than once in the series) finally becoming the Lizard. Frankly I hope they stick to the Sinister Seven before resorting to some of the lesser known villains.
