Movie geeks everywhere are intimately familiar with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The duo has written J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, the first two Transformers movies, Mission: Impossible 3, and Cowboys & Aliens, and have produced a ton of stuff from the television series “Alias” all the way up to next year’s film adaptation of Ender’s Game. Now, the writing/producing team has locked down their next gig: they’ll be writing the sequel to this summer’s The Amazing Spider-Man.

ComingSoon has the news, and I’m decidedly mixed about this. For every great project these guys have worked on, there’s a pretty terrible one to balance it out. James Vanderbilt originally wrote the script to this sequel, but it appears Sony is looking for something a bit different. It was recently reported that “Freaks and Geeks” and Bridesmaids director Paul Feig came in to do a little writing on the first The Amazing Spider-Man, so perhaps Sony is searching for someone with a finger a bit more on the pulse of current high school students to take this series to the next level. But are Kurtzman and Orci the right guys for the job?

I can totally see them as producers – after all, they specialize in big-budget blockbusters – but writing? It’s really tough to guess how this will turn out at this point, so I’ll leave it to you guys: do you think Kurtzman and Orci can write a compelling Spider-Man story? The Amazing Spider-Man swings into theaters on July 3rd, 2012, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hits theaters on May 2nd, 2014.

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Well, that was fast. Earlier today, we wrote about how studios are buying back into the Die Hard model of action film and one of their recent acquisitions was a spec script called White House Down, written by The Amazing Spider-Man scribe James Vanderbilt. Only a few hours later, Deadline is reporting that Independence Day director Roland Emmerich is in talks to direct. More below.

We now have a slightly better description of the plot, which is described as involving a paramilitary takeover of The White House. It’s not much to go on, but with the addition of Emmerich as the director, I think we have a better idea of what to expect. I was one of the few people who actually found quite a bit to like about Emmerich’s Shakespeare film Anonymous, but most people seem to agree that he’s best suited for massive budget CGI “disaster porn.” White House Down sounds a little more contained than the globe-spanning nonsense of 2012, his last blockbuster, and that’s definitely a good thing; I’ll be interested to see what Emmerich can do with an action drama that sounds like it falls squarely in between the two extremes.

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Ever since Die Hard changed the face of action cinema in 1988, studios have been trying to recreate that success on the big screen. Aside from the three Die Hard sequels (with a fourth on the way), there were movies that took the concept of a hero being trapped in one environment and ran it into the ground with films like like Passenger 57 (Die Hard on a plane), Speed (Die Hard on a bus), Speed 2: Cruise Control (Die Hard on a cruise ship), and The Rock (Die Hard on an island). That trend seemed to vanish in Hollywood for a while, but in the past few days, two separate studios have purchased scripts that could herald the start of a new cycle. Read on to find out about these projects.

First, The Hollywood Reporter has a story that Sony has purchased a script for a movie called White House Down from screenwriter James Vanderbilt. Nothing is really known about the plot, other than the aforementioned tonal connection to Die Hard and the Harrison Ford action flick Air Force One. Vanderbilt wrote The Amazing Spider-Man for Sony, so they’ve clearly formed a solid working relationship. His other credits include the Dwayne Johnson/Seann William Scott film The Rundown, David Fincher’s Zodiac, the upcoming Total Recall (the trailer for which just hit this weekend), and a rewrite of the upcoming RoboCop film for Jose Padilha.

And today, Deadline reported that Universal has bought a pitch from Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer for a film called Speeding Bullet, which is being described as “a throwback to the Die Hard-esque 90s buddy cop movie.” Friedman and Palmer are apparently working on a remake of the Whitney Houston/Kevin Costner film The Bodyguard for Warner Bros.

Again, we’re still in the early stages on both of these, so we’ll see how they shape up. Remember: Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood was once called Nottingham and was supposed to be told completely from the sheriff’s point of view, so projects can change drastically from their initial versions to when they finally hit the big screen. What do you think about the return of the Die Hard concept to action movies? Do you want to see more, or would you rather this “trend” stop at two?

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The Amazing Spider-Man won’t finish filming until next month, but Sony is already planning ahead for the sequel. According to Heat Vision screenwriter James Vanderbilt had a meeting with “studio execs yesterday outlining his take, getting a thumbs up, and will now begin writing.”

Vanderbilt wrote a version of the Spider-Man 4 script for Sam Raimi while that was still in production, and once it was scrapped Sony brought him back to write the reboot. The studio was already planning to make a new trilogy, so it makes sense to get working on the sequel early.

The Amazing Spider-Man, set for release July 3, 2012, is directed by Marc Webb and stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Rhys Ifans as the Lizard, Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben, Sally Field and Aunt May, and Irrfan Khan as the “Proto-Goblin,” a test subject of Norman Osborn’s experimentations.

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Before we talk about Spider-Man i’d like to give people a little reminder on rights. The reason 20th Century Fox continue to churn out X-Men films and the reason the Spider-Man franchise will continue is because Marvel will have an opportunity to re-claim the rights if the studios don’t put them into use (each deal varies, but it’s usually 4/5 years with no active development). Warner Bros. is at risk from losing the Superman rights if it doesn’t get a movie in development over the next few years. With the rights in mind, lets look at the recent news that Sony will be rebooting Spider-Man in 2012.

There was talk of Sony rebooting the franchise before Spider-Man 4 was announced. This was before Sam Raimi signed on to direct and Tobey came onboard, but their return put those plans on the back burner. James Vanderbilt was the first writer to start work on the script, however David Lindsay-Abaire was then hired to do re-writes (or possibly start from scratch). In July Gary Ross was brought in to do further re-writes, which didn’t look very good at all. Something was obviously not working if three writers were needed to do revisions of the script.

With hindsight the news in August that James Vanderbilt had been hired by Sony to write Spider-Man 5 & 6 should have got a bit more attention, however as Spider-Man 4 was developing nobody though much of it. According to the report Vanderbilt’s script would be the blueprint for a franchise reboot should Maguire, Raimi and Dunst choose not to return. Looking back it seems Sony were developing a ‘Plan B’ in case Spider-Man 4 didn’t work out. With the continued re-writes and Raimi signing on to direct World of Warcraft things weren’t certain.

There are a few reasons why Spider-Man 4 didn’t work out. It was made public that Raimi wasn’t happy with the script, and filming was delayed. Rumor has it that the script contained ‘The Vultress’ who Anne Hathaway was in talk to play. The character would have borrowed elements from Black Cat, however she would have been the daughter of The Vulture, who John Malkovich would have played. There were also rumors that Peter Parker and Mary Jane would have had a baby. This hasn’t been confirmed, however there was a casting call asking for a 2 year old toddler with red hair.

During the big meeting this week to decide the fate of Spider-Man 4 Sony went into it knowing that they have a script for a reboot ready and waiting. They knew they would reboot the franchise at some point in the future anyway as Tobey and Raimi wouldn’t be around forever. The benefit of having a reboot with a cheaper cast and lower budget was probably more appealing to them than paying the fees Maguire and Dunst would have received with a $250 million+ budget. They asked Raimi if he could make the film for summer 2011, he said he couldn’t keep the film’s creative integrity with that schedule, so it was scrapped and Plan B came into function.

Since the announcement that the reboot would be happening and we would be seeing it in 2012 there have been a few indications as to where it might go. Sony tweeted that Peter Parker would be heading back to high school, which spawned suggestions that Sony were going to aim for the Twilight/teen market. Now EW are saying that “the series will place Peter Parker in a more contemporary setting, as a teenager battling today’s issues” and that Sony are “interested in a more gritty, contemporary redo of the series”. This reboot could very well be what Batman Begins was to the Batman franchise, but I do think it is rather soon to have a reboot. However it goes back to the rights issue. Sony don’t want to let them slip away so a reboot is their only option.

As for Raimi, there is talk he will now be turning his attention to World of Warcraft, which i’m quite looking forward too. Raimi has wanted to get his hands on a fantasy film for a while, and it has the word ‘epic’ written all over it.

In the meantime, Sony said they would be releasing more information about the Spider-Man reboot in the near future. They need to hire a director, if they haven’t been talking to some already, and they of course need to find a young teenage male actor to play Peter Parker 2.0. Any suggestions?

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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.

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According to Variety writer and producer Gary Ross has been hired to rewrite the Spider-Man 4 script. Ross has previously directed Tobey Maguire in Seabiscuit and Pleasantville, so I’m sure Maguire was a reason Ross came aboard.

This makes Ross the third writer to leave his mark on Spider-Man 4 as James Vanderbilt was originally hired to write the script, which was then rewritten by David Lindsay-Abaire.

Spider-Man 4 currently has a May 2011 release date and production is expected to start early next year.

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