Spider-Man 4 No More!

I was going to write about my thoughts on John Malkovich playing the part of The Vulture in the new Spider-Man film, but it turns out that's not going to happen. Instead, it looks like Raimi and Maguire are out for a fourth Spider-Man film, and instead the studio is going to reboot the franchise. I have mixed feelings about this.

During Movie-A-Day month, I wrote about Spider-Man 2 as one of my favorite movies. I think that the first one is pretty good as well, and the best I can say about the third is that it has some good ideas and some good moments scattered throughout a jumbled mess. Part of me was hoping that Sam Raimi and company would be able to vindicate themselves with a fourth picture. My optimism grew when I read that they were only going to do it if Raimi had more control over the picture - which is something that he didn't have with the third one, and I believe that's one of the main reasons why it went south. (It turns out that he wasn't even interested in using Venom - which was smart of him even though so many fans like that villain.) When I heard that Malkovich was supposedly playing The Vulture, my hopes went up. However, I found out about the whole thing going kaput as I sat down to write this entry.

At the end of my Spider-Man 2 review, I wrote that I had to make peace with the fact that even if they did make a good fourth movie, chances were bad that it would be as good as the second one. I suppose that I could have lived with that, but it would have been really awful if they made one that was as bad, if not worse, than the third one. I remember an online conversation where a friend and I were mocking Transformers and somebody countered that it couldn't be worse than making another Spider-Man film. It was annoying because I can certainly defend the first two, but it's hard to defend a franchise that ends on such a craptastic note. (Still, I'll say that Spidey 3 was better than Transformers - at least the action scenes were comprehensible.)

So, what do I think about doing a reboot? Maybe this is not such a bad idea. Still, I think that Hollywood is getting a little reboot-happy. I'm not opposed to the idea, but it seems like some time needs to pass first. Still, it seems like they're going to go with a teenage Peter Parker in the new series, which is fine as that's how the character started out, and that's what they've kept him as in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic series and the Sensational Spider-Man cartoon series. (Which is a pretty good show! I need to remember to set my DVR, as I think that it's almost up there with the old Batman Animated Series.)

I just hope that the first movie isn't an origin story, and I hope that they find a nice mix of villains that we've seen before along with some that we haven't. Personally, I'd rather see a high-budget TV series, as Spider-Man's adventures lend themselves more easily to serialized drama - which is exactly what a comic book is. Too bad nobody in Hollywood is listening to me though.