Sony haven’t got a Spider-Man 4 script worthy of shooting yet, but that hasn’t stopped them from hiring James Vanderbilt to write the scripts for Spider-Man 5 and Spider-Man 6. Vanderbilt wrote the first draft for Spider-Man 4, and then David Lindsay-Abaire was brought on board to do a rewrite, and now Gary Ross doing a rewriting of that.
From Variety:
Raimi didn’t embrace all of Vanderbilt’s ideas, but execs at Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios have. Vanderbilt has been hired to pen the fifth and sixth movies, which have an interconnected storyline. That’s what was originally discussed when Vanderbilt signed on to write “Spider-Man 4,” but the idea of shooting a fourth and fifth film back to back with the original cast was scrapped.
Sources said it was unclear whether Raimi, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst will be back. If they aren’t, Vanderbilt’s script would be the blueprint for a franchise reboot. After committing to his fourth “Spider-Man” film, Raimi signed on to direct a new franchise based on the massively multiplayer role-playing online computer game “World of Warcraft” for Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Maguire and Dunst were locked into the first three pictures and made a new deal for “Spider-Man 4.” It’s unclear how long they want to continue with the series.
Spider-Man 4 starts filming next year for a May 2011 release, and if it ends up as good as Spider-Man 2 and makes gazillions like the previous films then why the hell not make a Spider-Man 5? However, if 5 is a reboot they’ll have to wait a few years before giving it too us. We accepted Hulk because the first one wasn’t all that, but Spider-Man is a tad more popular and rebooting that universe won’t be as easy.
