After months of casting rumors and speculation about who the villains would be, Spider-Man 4 has been scrapped by Sony in favor of rebooting the series. That’s right, Sony is starting the not even decade old series over with a new cast and new filmmakers. A few days ago it was reported that Spider-Man 4 was being delayed due to the fact that there was no script yet, but all signs pointed that the film would still be made. It was reported by EW yesterday that Sony wants “a more gritty, contemporary redo of the series.” I don’t even know what that means. Spider-Man is supposed to be light and colorful; he’s not Batman. I don’t even remotely understand the contemporary comment. Sam Raimi’s version took place in the 2000’s, not the 70’s or the 80’s. What are they going to do, set it in the future?

EW also reports “This time around, the series will place Peter Parker in a more contemporary setting, as a teenager battling today’s issues. The decision to go with an origin story stemmed from Sony developing two Spidey projects simultaneously. According to studio insiders, Sony was working on both Raimi’s Spider-Man 4and the new origin story from James Vanderbilt, who wrote Zodiac. The original plan was to keep the Spider-Man gang together for one last film in 2011 before rebooting the series in 2012. When it became clear that Raimi would not be able to make the summer 2011 release date planned for Spider-Man 4, the studio opted to scrap Spider-Man 4  altogether, and focus solely on the series reboot.”

It all comes down to corporate greed my friends. According to Variety, Sony must continue to actively develop the Spider-Man franchise or else the rights revert back to Disney/Marvel. Clearly Sony was trying to squeeze a little more money out the Spider-Man cash cow. Make part four with Raimi and then start over from there. The new origin script has already been completed and was written by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac). The new movie is now in preproduction and the new cast and director is expected to be announced within the next couple of weeks. 

Here’s the thing, you can analyze what Sony’s intentions for the franchise are until your brain melts, but the truth is that they are just doing whatever they have to do to keep the rights to the popular wall crawler. They’re not just going to allow a property that has generated nearly $2.5 billion in worldwide box office receipts slip through their fingers. 

As far as the fanboy outcry that has already begun to ensue, I get it, I truly do. I love what Sam Raimi has done with Spidey; in fact I happen to think that Spider-Man 2 is the best superhero movie of all time. I also think that the casting of Tobey Maguire as the friendly neighborhood web slinger was one of the best casting choices in the history of cinema and I will miss him a great deal. It seems to me, that one way or another, whether Sony keeps the rights or they revert back to Disney/Marvel, the series was in for a reboot. The problem is how do you tell an origin story that has just been told 8 years ago in a new and exciting way that still keeps the original spirit of the comic book intact? I don’t think it is possible. Given I would rather see this responsibility fall into the hands of Marvel rather than Sony, but one way or another, the current Spidey series would have had to come to an end. 

There have been reboots that were done nearly as quickly as the Spidey series, but I don’t think any of them can really compare. Sure they redid The Incredible Hulk just 5 years after the first film, but in all fairness, the first film was downright awful. Batman Begins came out just seven years after the atrocious Batman & Robin, but the series started in 1989. Plans are already afoot to relaunch Superman after the failure of the prior relaunch in 2006, but again that film sucked. The Spider-Man films are actually very good and to have it start over already just seems like a disaster in the making to me. I understand Spider-Man 3 wasn’t as great as parts 1 and 2, but it was still good. I just don’t see how any filmmaker can improve upon the origin story that Sam Raimi perfected just 8 short years ago. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be interesting to say the very least.