With shooting still underway on “The Amazing Spider-Man,” Columbia is wasting no time in getting their ducks in a row for the inevitable sequel.
THR reports that screenwriter James Vanderbilt (“Zodiac“), whose contingency script enabled the franchise to keep moving when Sam Raimi‘s fourth entry fell apart at the last minute, has been hired back for the sequel and has already started writing it.
The move is a fairly smart one on behalf of the studio. Hiring him back now probably gets the scribe at a lower price than he might command after the movie is an eventual mega-hit. It also gives the studio a readied script so when the next opportunity arrives with cleared schedules for all the talent involved, they can move quickly to get a sequel in front of cameras, hopefully cutting down on the wait time between Spidey pics. Parent company Sony also pulled a similar move with their ‘Dragon Tattoo‘ franchise, securing Steve Zaillian to write the sequel before production had even started on the David Fincher film.
There’s no word yet on the story but Vanderbilt pitched it himself and it’s one that went over well with all the brass. There’s also no word if Marc Webb will return to direct, but we’d guess he’s got dibs on the job if he wants it.
