Marc Webb in talks for Spider-Man reboot?

We know Sony are now actively developing the Spider-Man reboot following the collapse of Spider-Man 4, so the chances of them talking with potential directors is quite high. According to Deadline Hollywood Sony has a list of a few directors they are considering, and apparently (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb has met with producers. And it’s not just because his second name is ‘Webb’.

Marc Webb, the (500) Days Of Summer director, has climbed to the top of the Sony Pictures’ list to rebirth the Spider-Man franchise. While the studio has a wish list of star directors like James Cameron, David Fincher, and Wes Anderson, the emergence of Webb as director comes as a huge surprise. But Mike Fleming’s sources tell him Webb met about the Spidey reboot with the pic’s producers and executives looking to get the picture into production later this year for a Summer 2012 release. Why will the pic take so long? Because it’s likely to be shot in 3-D, and Sony Pictures plans to make an announcement about that “at the appropriate time”.

What has Sony execs excited is the fact that (500) Days of Summer introduced a director with a grasp of how to depict the way young people think and feel. This is critical because the Jamie Vanderbilt script covers the formative years of a high school-aged Peter Parker, and that POV is as important as the action sequences. Especially after Sony and Sam Raimi retired the original Spidey franchise because they realized the film would have been same old/same old at a huge budget. Injecting new blood with an up-and-coming director is a bold stroke.

It will be quite a leap of faith if Sony go with Webb as he hasn’t really had any experience with big budget action films. But then again it’s usually the case that smaller directors are quite good at handling superheroes. Bryan Singer and Christopher Nolan for example. While it isn’t official, we should be hearing more on the Spider-Man reboot and it’s director over the upcoming weeks.