What Could Have Been: Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4

Spider-Man 3 was not only a disappointment for fans but director Sam Raimi himself which is why he and his team felt compelled to return for a fourth Spider-Man film to make up for the third entry in the franchise however despite their enthusiasm and the significant work that took place behind the scenes to get the film made the project never materialized as the franchise would shift gears with a soft reboot featuring Andrew Garfield as the new web Slinger so why didn't the fourth Spider-Man film happen and most importantly what would it have been about to answer those questions and more let's dive in and take a look back at what could have been Sam raimi's Spider-Man 4. but first we need to go back to when Sam Raimi began work on Spider-Man 3. initially he envisioned Sandman and vulture as the film's two villains after turning in the script however producer Avi Arad pushed back and argued that vulture didn't make for a compelling villain further he accused raymie of only featuring his personal favorite Spider-Man villains in the films over those more popular with fans like Venom who had exploded in popularity during the 90s and early 2000s the character who's arguably the most popular Marvel character of all time eventually raymie reluctantly agreed and replaced vulture with Venom unfortunately a rod wasn't done meddling and also requested Remy include another love interest for Peter forcing him to shoehorn Gwen Stacy into the mix too and the end result was a bloated film with too many characters and subplots ultimately feeling like two different films shoved together the one Remy wanted to make featuring Sandman and the one the studio forced him to make featuring Venom and Gwen Stacy and it's clear from the final product that Remy's heart wasn't completely in it as he'd go on to admit a few years after the film came out that while he tried to make a work he didn't fully believe in all of the characters and felt the film was awful angry that he not only let himself be talked into making a film he didn't fully believe in but also that he let down fans Remy wanted another crack at it and was determined to go out on a high note with Spider-Man 4. when asked about complaints that there were too many villains in Spider-Man 3 Remy agreed saying having so many villains detracted from the experience which is why on the fourth film he wanted to go back to formula as development began the first thing Remy did was select a villain and the one he chose was the one he wanted to include last time around that being the vulture AKA Adrian tombs in raymie's version of the character tombs would have been a private contractor for the U.S government committing terrible actions on their behalf leading him to earn the nickname vulture because he never left anything but his victims bones behind and while Ben Kingsley was considered for the roll back during development of Spider-Man 3 this time around raymie wanted John Malkovich who was originally offered the role of Green Goblin in the first film but turned it down this time however Malkovich was excited at the prospect of playing a Spider-Man villain as he enthusiastically entered into negotiations to play the character but with that casting the worry internally was that fans would dismiss Malkovich as just an old guy in a silly green suit with wings so Remy wanted to subvert expectations and make him the most fearsome and formidable adversary that Spider-Man had ever faced but we're getting ahead of ourselves so let's go back to the start of the film which would have seen Peter and MJ attempt to reconcile their relationship following the events of Spider-Man 3. however the arrival of Peter's new colleague at the bugle Felicia Hardy throws a wrench into those plans as Peter and MJ go their separate ways after Peter develops feelings for Felicia who would have been played by Anne Hathaway feeling free after his breakup with MJ we would have seen a montage of Spider-Man catching all of the villains from his Rogue gallery that Remy was never going to use in his films as the main antagonists such as Mysterio the Shocker the prowler stiltman and Rhino and longtime rainy collaborator Bruce Campbell who snuck in Via Cameo and stole the show in each of the first three Spider-Man films would have had a much larger role in this one as he'd be playing Mysterio in that opening Montage The Daily Bugle would have also changed hands with Adrian tomb stepping in to take it over as Peter attempts to navigate his feelings for Felicia at work he's unaware that his new boss Adrian tombs is her adopted father as tombs plans to seize control of New York City's criminal underworld this brings him into direct conflict with Spider-Man and Midway through the film The Two find themselves locked in a ferocious and bloody battle over the Skies of New York as Felicia helplessly watches eventually vulture is able to pin Spider-Man down and remove his mask learning of a secret identity unfazed vulture goes in for the kill but Peter defends himself and accidentally kills vulture in the process while Felicia looks on in horror following this instead of becoming the black cat Felicia takes over the mantle from her father adopting the identity of the vultrus in order to seek revenge against Peter by the end of the film she'd basically succeed and defeat Spider-Man in a final battle but opt to spare his life storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson responsible for the illustrations you just saw said it would have been a kick-ass movie because everyone from top to bottom felt that Spider-Man 3 was a bit of a missed opportunity and they all really wanted to help raymie take Spider-Man 4 to another level so he could end this series on a high note raymie however was less enthusiastic and apparently hated the script so much so that he had four different screenwriters try their hand at it but after eating each pass he still wasn't satisfied and while Toby Maguire and Kirsten duns were eager to return everybody's intention is to to get it out for 2011. they also originally only signed a three picture deal which they fulfilled and for Spider-Man 4 they were each asking for considerable pay raises to offset some of these costs producer Amy Pascal wanted Raymond to make two films that they could shoot back to back over a six-month period in order to also get as much mileage out of Maguire and duns before they became too old to convincingly play these roles Maguire allegedly wanted 50 million for the two movies plus a percent of the box office seats something Sony was reluctant to pay Remy however was against this idea anyway and just wanted to focus on making one Standalone adventure with the idea that a two-parter could be tackled afterwards or it's likely that we would have finally gotten to see Dr Connors turn into the lizard at this time Stanley even asserted that the next logical villain for McGuire Spider-Man was the lizard because the character had been established in the previous two films Dr Connors and while Remy is on record saying he loved the lizard and felt there was a great story in the comics for them to adapt he was dead set on using the vulture in the fourth film preferring to push the lizard story to a fifth film which he assured everyone including Dylan Baker the actor portraying Dr Connors that the lizard story would eventually be told well I you know that's the thing about Sam is that you know villains are are fascinating to him it's like what what is it that makes a villain and it's pretty interesting so wherever Sam wanted to go with that I'd be fascinated and take going along it's at this point that the studio began to push back yet again on Remy's choice of villain as feedback from fans to news of vulture being the primary antagonist and Malkovich playing him was met with a negative reception online as for who the studio preferred over vulture is unknown but I'd wager it was the lizard for two reasons one once rainy left the film that's who became the villain in Mark Webb's Amazing Spider-Man and two my favorite villain of all time is Connors adding to Remy's troubles was the popularization of 3D and if we put this in historical context it's important to remember that Spider-Man 4 would have come out after Avatar Sony realizing that moviegoers were paying a premium to see movies in 3D began to pressure raymie into making Spider-Man 4 in 3D as well something he balked at as he and his team had never worked with the format before Sony even tried arranging a meeting between raymie and James Cameron but the issue here wasn't that Remy was against shooting in 3D which he'd eventually do a few years later on Oz the Great and Powerful but rather that Sony was mandating that he shoot on a format he was unfamiliar you're with that would have added more time to the schedule and not move the release date to accommodate for him and his team to get up to speed on the new technology between arguing overshooting the film in 3D and disagreeing on who the primary antagonist should be Spider-Man 4 was turning into another battle of Artistic integrity between the studio and Ramy which is odd considering the last time the studio meddled it resulted in the film everyone was disappointed with so you'd think they'd have learned their lesson and would have just let raymie do his thing I told you to stay off this set and never come back while this was all going on Sony began making contingency Plans by prepping a reboot behind Remy's back I was originally hired to write Spider-Man 4 and was really sort of excited to come in and do that because I was I wanted to no one had sort of finished out a superhero franchise before sort of on purpose so Amy Pascal called me and she said listen We're not gonna end up making Spider-Man 4 but uh would you be interested in helping us to start again with the franchise eventually Remy felt he couldn't meet the Studio's hard release date while maintaining creative integrity and decided to bow out saying I was very unhappy with Spider-Man 3 and I wanted to make Spider-Man 4 to end on a very high note the best Spider-Man of them all but I couldn't get this script together in time due to my own failings and I said to Sony I don't want to make a movie that is less than great so I think we shouldn't make this picture go ahead with your reboot which I know you've been planning anyway and that's exactly what Sony did announcing their rebooted Spider-Man literally days after Spider-Man 4 was canceled and Not only would they get their choice of villain in the film with the lizard but they'd be cutting considerable costs by not having to bring back raymie Tobey Maguire and Kristen duns for inflated wages remember McGuire was asking for 25 million plus a percent of the profits for the sequel whereas his replacement Andrew Garfield was paid just five hundred thousand dollars for the reboot unfortunately as Sony marched ahead with their reboot they blow it have to turn to Marvel for assistance and reboot again but with the introduction of the Multiverse and the return of Toby Maguire coupled with Sam Raimi directing Doctor Strange the talk of doing Spider-Man 4 began to intensify once more I didn't think it was possible but after jumping back in with the Multiverse I realized that just like Doctor Strange does anything is possible now so I'm completely open to it thanks for watching everybody and don't forget to like And subscribe to bullets and Blockbusters for more great content

Channel: Bullets & Blockbusters

Views: 252,036

Keywords: spiderman

Id: a1bT5eoUmw0

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 20 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/attackresist]

Who would Angelina Jolie be playing in this?

 

I think that's all brilliant casting, but I don't know what character Angelina is supposed to be.