We are finally starting to hear of some developments for the next Spider-Man movie, as Avi Arad and Sam Raimi sit down and talk about what direction they want the future of the franchise to go.
One development this week has been to hire a new screenwriter for the fourth installment. David Koepp wrote the first movie but wasn’t around for it’s sequel or the third flick in the franchise, but earlier this year he was hired to return to scribe Spider-Man 4.
Well news today is that Koepp has been replaced on the writing duties by James Vanderbilt, writer of Zodiac, The Rundown and Basic… and he’s also one of the guys recently hired to save the X-Men Origins: Wolverine script.
Indeed, he’s probably slaving over the script right now as that midnight deadline approaches.
Of course with said deadline, Vanderbilt won’t be able to write any of the next movie for a while, but the strike won’t stop him from jotting down a few ideas, attending meets with Raimi/Arad and just generally thinking in his head where he could take the next movie.
The news comes from Entertainment Weekly who claim the next movie is aiming for a 2009 release. That seems a little early to me with all the mystery still surrounding the future of the franchise, and with the two upcoming strikes, I just don’t see how that is possible.
But I do think some early developments are now being made. Next step is for Raimi to decide what capacity he will be involved in.
3 Comments
I felt the franchise was in stand-still under Raimi. Three movies and almost no movement on any of the story arcs and what little story there was was uninteresting and stupid. Only Spidy 2 was any good, the first one was a big non-event and number 3 was just a big mess.
Don’t know why so many people think Raimi’s the greatest things since sliced bread.
Long as they bring in someone who will bring some velocity and forward-movement to the franchise storylines, so you feel like it’s all going somewhere instead of around in circles.
And Koepp is the guy who usually writes scripts for Spielberg so I for one am surprised at how slow and inept Spidey 1 was. I lay the blame at Raimi’s feet more than Koepp’s.
With Raimi no longer directing we can see somebody with fresh ideas a real vision come to the table. The property sure does need it.
@JaySmack:
It’s been quite well publicised that most of the problems with Spiderman 3 were to do with the studio pulling rank on Raimi and stopping him from being able to take the series in the direction he wanted to take it (e.g. forcing him to shoehorn Venom into the film, blocking Raimi from setting up Bruce Campbell as the future Mysterio, forcing the origin of the symbian suit to change due to percieved similarities with Superman Returns, etc.).
If Raimi manages to regain control, even if just at a script level, we could have another Spiderman 2-style triumph. They have to let him follow his instincts though.
True, there was typical studio interferance, but Raimi was the most to blame. He’d been dragging out his damned boring-as-HELL Green Goblin soap-opera for seven damned years. Enough was freaking enough!
And yea, it was WAY past time Venom made an appearance. I’m glad Raimi didn’t like him (I’m not exactly a Spider-Man fan so I didn’t care one way or the other) but this is a business about making the audience happy, and anyone familiar with Apider-Man wants to see Venom.
It would be one thing if the whole Green Goblin saga was wrapped up in one movie, but Raimi was still dragging the plot of that out. Did he really need three movies and nearly eight hours just to tell that tale?
No!
Raimi’s instincts are largely what has slown down what should have been a full-throttle franchise. He needs to be told, to tell the story he sets out to tell, and do it in one movie. Each installment in the franhcise must find closure in itself. Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing him gone and putting someone else in his place.
One Trackback
[...] week, the Hollywood Reporter announced that writer James Vanderbilt will write the next Spider-Man movie. Clearly, the suits at Sony Pictures–sensitive to the criticisms of the over-burdened [...]