Spider-Man 4 washed down plughole

Columbia Pictures has cancelled Spider-Man 4 and will now develop "a younger, cheaper installment of the superhero franchise", without the assistance of Tobey Maguire or director Sam Raimi. The movie was scheduled for a 2011 release, but the studio last week put it on indefinite hold due to "script problems", Variety explains …

[Anonymous Coward]

£10 says it will be even shitter than spiderman 3

-end-

[Hermes Conran]

sounds like it will be a,

Spider Turkey!

[Malcolm 1]

A small mercy...

Spiderman 3 was one of the worst movies I have ever seen - particularly all that gothed up 'evil' Peter Parker nonsense in the middle. 1 and 2 were pretty good though.

[Anonymous Coward]

hold on

How can you go back to his roots? In the first film we saw his super powered roots and a younger Toby Maguire would be Toby Maguire as he hasn't aged and half the thing is with a mask on anyway.

Do we really want to see him AGAIN in the ring with the guy who is the "macho man randy savage"? Sadly it means a younger kirsten dunst as well, or will she be in it?

Hollywood PR really isn't cutting it much in 2010.

[GeorgeTuk]

Indeed...

how will they spin it.

Probably the same X-Men Origins: Wolverine....so badly I don't even bother to watch it.

I have to say I think Watchmen signalled the end of any interesting superhero movies, after that they are all going to look a bit rubbish.

[Richard 120]

ORLY?

One word -

Preacher

[Kimo]

Kirsten Dunst...

...will be playing Aunt May.

[Richard 120]

And Toby Maguire

can play Arseface.

perfect :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

...cheaper installment of the superhero franchise

Says it all really...

[John 104]

LOL

And along with the cheaper production costs will be the lousy returns. Good luck!

Then again, the last movie was such a turd I was actually bored watching it.

[MinionZero]

@"a younger, cheaper installment of the superhero franchise"

I was very sorry to hear this news this morning, but I can't help thinking that Disney's takeover of Marvel has something to do with it. Now Spider-Man-Boy 4 sounds like some kind of bloody school drama!

I guess Spider Boy's battle this time will be to fight to be in the final of his school's version of x-factor. :(

[Ian Stephenson]

I can see it now...

Spider Man High School Musical 4 - The next Generation.

Get me a beer, I need to cry into it....

[Jason McQueen]

Fail!

Destined to be terrible. I thought the spiderman franchise was doing ok but this just sounds like "how can we cash in on the name Spiderman but not spend any money?".

No, they wont be spending on the large salaries but neither will they see the returns.

[Kevin 6]

Agree

Then they will blame piracy for the lack of revenue generated, and start banging the anit-piracy wardrums instead of chalking it up to their bad decisions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Disney Spiderman

And the new movie will be:

Spider-man the musical

[Pirate Dave]

sad

I'd grown rather used to Maguire as Peter Parker, and was hoping Spiderman 4 would make up for the misstep of Spiderman 3. Ah well, another great series killed by the "reboot"...

[Inachu]

Here we go again.

Not only with Batman but now with Spiderman.

I am sick of Hollywood.

There is no growth to the story line. It never goes farther than part 3.

"OH! We can make it better and start off at part 1 again every 5 to 10 years!"

I am sick of the retelling of the story. Please continue at part 4.

The only movie that deserves a nice retelling of the story is Peter Pan.

[Anthony Gamble]

What the hell are you talking about?

Police Academy 9 was ace.

[iamapizza]

Script Problems

"put it on indefinite hold due to "script problems"

You mean someone actually read it?

[0laf]

Still

Maybe Sam Raimi will make Evil Dead 4 now!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't Peter Parker bitten ...

, or perhaps strung, by the spider that gave him his super powers while in university? He could still certainly have been a teenager, but he wouldn't have grow up with super powers.

The studio appears to be moving away from the tv carton and comic book plots that made Spiderman successful. That has got to be a great idea.

[rhdunn]

The Reboot Craze

Very little original content has come out of Hollywood in recent years (adaptation, sequel or reboot). Sometimes, a reboot of a series works out well (like Batman Begins/The Dark Knight and Star Trek), but is more often likely to result in failure. At least with the Batman films, there was some time between the last outing and Begins.

At least with avatar (while similar in structure to Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves) there were interesting ideas and attention to detail that made it enjoyable.

The more interesting and original films are coming from indie film makers.

It seems like Hollywood is backing 3D technology to make up for its lack of originality. Come up with something that is original, has good characters that evolve throughout the film and have an interesting story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spiderpig

Look for an installment coming to a theater near you! Spiderpig! Spiderpig! Does whatever a spiderpig does!

[Kevin 6]

you mean Spider-Ham ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Ham

I actually still have 1 or 2 of the comics laying around somewhere

[Captain TickTock]

Spider-ham may be cool...

But Spider-Pig is cooler:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_in_The_Simpsons#Plopper

[Torben Mogensen]

Reboot?

DC rebooted the Batman movies with Batman Begins -- i.e., ignored that there were previous films so they could start from scratch without all the accumulated baggage.

Marvel/Disney can do the same with Spiderman, but given the relatively short time since Spiderman 3, it will seem a bit odd to do so. Odder things have happened in the film industry, though.

I don't really think that there are that much undesired baggage from the three previous films to warrant a reboot -- what made SM3 a bad move was primarily that it had too many stories running at the same time (Venon, Sandman, Harry Osborne as the new Green Goblin), which made it rather a mess. Several of these stories could also have been told a lot better, but I can't see that as reason enough for a reboot.

It would be a minor issue to change actors even if the new film starts where the previous left off -- after all, the previous Batman series had three different actors playing Batman, and Superman Returns is supposedly a sequel to the Christopher Reeve films, even though all actors have changed. So I, personally, think this would be the best solution. A smaller budget is no problem -- SM3 was way OTT in special effects, and special effects do not a good story make.

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple plotlines

Actually, to some in the industry, the more subplots a film can handle at the same time, the better. Question is tho, how well can the director handle it, and can he tie it all together gracefully at the end?

[Anonymous Coward]

"script problems"

"script problems" probably means they can't come up with anything better than the one for Spidey 3.

A good thing for us if they've canned it - we won't have to sit through another couple of hours of total dross (my gf refused to leave the cinema and it was too noisy for a decent nap)

Mine's the one with a copy of "drag me to hell" in the pocket

[Anonymous Coward]

Thought of the day

Who gives a ****?

[OffBeatMammal]

a sequel without Maguire ....

... can only be an improvement.

[Peter Gordon]

His roots?

But he got his powers in the first Spider-Man, so if you go back before that, he's just some nerdy kid with no special powers?!

[Eduard Coli]

It's not the hero but the villains that make a superhero movie

There really was no reason other than $$$ of course to make a 3rd movie, the 1st included Spiderman's best villain the the 2nd movie was mainly to resolve some loose ends from the first.

If the studios make a cheaper Spiderman will they say they made money on it this time?

Whoever is handling this project at the studio must be a real crook as this is the same movie where the studios tried to rook Stan Lee by saying that they made no money despite record breaking box office takes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Another reboot?

It's the windows mentality I tells ya!

[Ian Ferguson]

Maybe if they restrict the budget enough...

...they'll do some actual script writing to make up for the lack of CGI

[Chris Dupont]

Ultimate Spiderman Movie?

Could be an opportunity to bring in more of the elements from the excellent Ultimate Spider-man line. Could be a nice way to slide it into the Iron Man/Thor/Avengers series of films at the same time.

[jai]

to really kill the franchise...

they should get Joel Schumacher to direct it !

[Mr Bear]

Does this mean...

That we won't see Spidey taking on The Vulture?

Reg 'Tombstone' cos Spidey always wins in the end.

[luxor]

Yawn!

Spiderman 1,2 and 3 were crap. So who cares?

[Pascal Monett]

"Columbia stands to save a few bucks"

So do I - since I certainly won't see it.

[Youngdog]

Superhero movie you say?

Forget all this Marvel crap - give us LUTHER ARKWRIGHT: THE MOVIE!

It's got everything - nefarious baddies with a mind-bending plot to destroy the universe, lashings of dashing deeds and daring do PLUS oodles of tantric nookie for good measure.

And he's British!

LUTHER FTW!

[Craig Taylor 1]

Spiderboy!!!

Hehe. That sounds like a GREAT IDEA! I'm sure it'll smash box office records or something.

[EvilGav 1]

But . . .

. . . I thought SM4 was meant to tie it into the Avengers story-line (along with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America and Ant-man).

Or has the Avengers project been killed off now ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spiderman 4: the birth of baby spiderman

Hi, it used to be that a series might be revised after 10 or 20 years. Gone are the days of Gunsmoke, a TV series lasted 20 years with the same actors. Spiderman without the original actor and his beautiful wife? Over and out, won't even go see it. Pay the actors what they deserve. I suppose Avatar 2 will already be assigned new actors who they can hire cheaper...

[Secretgeek]

Avatar 2

Or they'll just make it in SVGA.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it....

....please, someone, anyone help me understand. In the first Spiderman movie of this era Peter Parker gets bitten whence upon we're introduced to Spider Man and follow as Peter Parker deals and "grows up" with his "super power crises". If the *fourth* film is meant to be a *slow gag reflex* prequel isn't it just gonna be about a geeky kid growing up fantasizing about the girl next door? To make it cheaper is it just gonna end with a copy/paste of the first 20 minutes of the first movie before just cutting to black?

W...T...F?

[Inachu]

I am happy and sad about this!

I am happy they stopped the script because I bet they did not develop the characters any.

Hollywood has this love affair with movies that stop at part 3.... Then they somehow forget everything and start the movie over from part 1 thinking they can reinvent the wheel over and over and over again.

I am pretty sick of seeing this and not seeing any growth of a storyline that ties in with part 1,2, and 3. Oh wait lets stop! new actor star is hot so lets start at ground zero!!!=fail....

Hollywood how I hate thee.