Now the dust has settled on the Spider-Man 4 debacle, and Raimi and co. are gone, Sony are swiftly moving ahead with their plans for the franchise reboot in 2012.
According to reports, the forthcoming Spider-Man reboot will place Peter Parker in a more contemporary setting, as a teenager battling today’s issues. According to studio insiders, Sony was working on both Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 and a new origin story from James Vanderbilt, who wrote Zodiac.
Entertainment Weekly are reporting that Sony’s original plan was to keep the original Spider-Man around for one last film in 2011 before rebooting the series in 2012. However when it became clear that Raimi would not be able to make the summer 2011 release date planned for Spider-Man 4, the studio opted to scrap the film altogether and focus solely on the series reboot.
Who will helm the reboot is anyone’s guess but with the studio interested in a more gritty, contemporary redo of the series, they are certainly focused on younger directors making waves in Hollywood.
One name that has apparently cropped up is Marc Webb, the director behind (500) Day of Summer. Also, in the past Michael Bay has expressed interest in taking over the Spider-Man franchise, but his involvement is doubtful as he’s busy with the Transformers franchise. Also in the running could be writer/director Gary Ross, who worked on one of the drafts of Spider-Man 4.
