Sam Raimi Liked AVATAR so much it led to SPIDER-MAN 4's Demise and the Story we won't get to see
It's no secret that Sam Raimi hated the last draft of Spider-Man 4, and that he and Sony executives couldn't agree on a villain. He wanted John Malkovich to play The Vulture and Sony didn't. Why? Because of the toys! Sony didn't think anyone would be interested in buying a 60 year old man Vulture toy. These are just a couple of things that helped kill the project, but it looks like we may have dodged another bullet with this one, I'll tell you why in a minute. First lets discuss Avatar.
Sam Raimi loved the hell out of Avatar, he loved it so much that it helped kill the project. After he saw it he was all about wanting to push the film into a realm of CGI that we hadn't seen yet in the Spider-Man films. This isn't even including 3D, he was looking to take the special effects to a whole new level with Spider-Man 4, but doing that costs money and time. Time that the studio didn't have.
Sony set a strict release date of May 6th 2011. The studio, whose corporate parent Sony must answer to Wall Street had to stick to that date, and missing that date would mean depriving Sony of a billion dollars in revenue. One of the producers at Sony said the following.
Every movie is a power struggle. But the tipping point was that Sam wanted to do certain things that would push the envelope in terms of [special effects] ‘toys’ and other visual stimulation, and Sony didn’t feel that was essential to the franchise.
I think it would have been awesome to see Spider-Man push the envelope in terms of special effects. The special effects in the first couple films were really good but not great or mind blowing. If Avatar has taught us anything it's that using these kinds of crazy awesome effects can pay off.
Don't be upset about Sony not going through with Raimi's CGI ambitions yet, it may have been a blessing that this movie never happened. According to a producer at Sony the script that went through three different writers was a schizophrenic mess. They said the story line that Raimi was pushing for,
threatened to torpedo the whole franchise.
So how did the story go? Well here is the condensed version:
Peter Parker gets over MJ, finds a new girl, falls in love. But: Peter also discovers her father is actually the Vulture, a naughty green guy with wings to be played by John Malkovich. Peter is torn between the love of his new lady and taking down the Vulture. Being a Spandex tight-ass, he decides to take down the Vulture, and kills him. This patricide goes down poorly with Peter’s new fiancée, and she rejects him. Despondent, Peter decides to abandon his superpowers, and Movie No. 4 ends with Peter Parker throwing away his Spider-Man mask.
Wait, so the fourth Spider-Man movie ends the exact same way part two ended? What!? And of course she rejects him! He killed her dad! What did Peter think was going to happen? Ok, so in my opinion maybe it's a good thing part four will never happen. It seems like we've seen this story done already. Not sure if I liked where that story was going. Could the movie have been amazing had Raimi been able to bring his vision to life? I guess we'll never know.
What you all think of the Spider-Man 4 story line and the way the movie was killed?