The journey from Sam Raimi‘s never-made “Spider-Man 4” to Marvel‘s “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness” has been an interesting one, as the genre director seemed keen to keep making “Spider-Man” movies despite the poor reception of 2008’s “Spider-Man 3.” Raimi is now giving a little more insight into how things ultimately unraveled and why the headaches of “Spider-Man 3” was a contributing factor.
Essentially, Raimi told Moviepilot in a new interview that the “Spider-Man 4” script never really came together and that the director wasn’t willing to go through making another rushed installment. Instead of making compromises, again, opting for Sony to pursue their own version without him.
“We had a script years ago and we were actively working in pre-production,” Raimi recalled. “It became a thing where there was a deadline and I didn’t want to make something that was less than great. I thought I had compromised a bit on ‘Spider-Man 3’ and I wanted to really pay the audience back on ‘Spider-Man 4’ and make the best Spider-Man of all. And I couldn’t get the script together in that amount of time. So I told Sony, ‘I think it’s best if you go ahead with your planned alternate Spider-Man storyline because I don’t want to let the audience down.'”
For some background, “Spider-Man 4” screenwriter James Vanderbilt was hired in 2009 by the studio to pen “Spider-Man 5” and “Spider-Man 6“ and it seemed like the health of the franchise was going great.
As Raimi points out, the script never seemed to be in the right place while both David Lindsay-Abaire and Gary Ross were hired to tackle rewrites, potentially in the hopes to get things back on track. That same year prep was well underway with actors John Malkovich and Anne Hathaway expected to become the new additions to the franchise.
By January 2010, it was reported by Deadline that “Spider-Man 4” was no longer moving forward and that Vanderbilt would instead focus on a reboot script, “The Amazing Spider-Man,” for a new director/cast that would eventually become the Marc Webb-directed incarnation starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.
It doesn’t sound like Raimi has officially closed the door on a potential “Spider-Man” return as in the same Moviepilot interview he said that he’s “completely open” to the idea and alluded to Tobey Maguire‘s revival of the role in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” via The Multiverse giving them the ability to, hypothetically, reunite.
“I didn’t think it was possible but after jumping back in with the Multiverse, I realized that anything is possible now so I’m completely open to it.” “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness” comes out on May 6 and you can watch the full interview with Moviepilot below.