Anne Hathaway Reveals How Close She Came to Playing Black Cat in SPIDER-MAN 4
When Sam Raimi was developing Spider-Man 4, producers wanted Anne Hathaway to take on the role of Felicia Hardy, aka Black Cat, which is such a perfect casting choice. She went on to play Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, but she would’ve made a great Black Cat in the Spider-Man franchise.
The fourth Spider-Man movie would’ve also seen John Malkovich as Adrian Toomes, aka The Vulture, and Angelina Jolie as Toomes' daughter, who would have become Vulturess. Dylan Baker would have also reprised his role as Dr. Curt Connors, and we would’ve saw his transformation into the Lizard. Oh, yeah! Bruce Campbell was going to play Mysterio. Yeah, there was a lot going on in Spider-Man 4.
During a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Hathaway shared how close she actually came to playing Black Cat and revealed that she was officially cast in the role:
"Uh, I did not get into costume and did not read a script past the audition slides. I got the part and, yeah, it just...I think that's probably more the producers' story to tell than mine should they ever decide to tell it.
"The Spider-Man Universe has gone on to be so enormous and so thrilling. It's just reinventing itself and all of those things so I wouldn't want to make more of it than is necessary."
When previously talking about Spider-Man 4, storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson offered some insight on what Raimi was looking to do with it saying: "We were going to open the movie with this montage of all the villains we knew that Sam would never be able to use in Spider-Man movies. Because Peter, now that MJ has gone, he has finally made peace, and he loves being Spider-Man. He's actually enjoying it. So we were going to try to do The Shocker, Mysterio, Stilt-Man, and that kind of stuff."
He also explained: "It would’ve been part of a beginning of the film montage featuring a montage of C and D- list villains that we knew would never be used as main antagonists: Mysterio, the Shocker, the Prowler, the old school-onesie-wearing version of the Rhino, maybe even the Stilt Man, etc.”
The Vulture would have been the main villain, though, and when talking about the vision Raimi had for that character, Henderson explained: “The thing we kept coming back to was that, as a character, everyone was going to dismiss the Vulture as just an old guy in a silly green suit. So we wanted to go the opposite way and really make him the most fearsome and formidable adversary that Spider-Man had faced in the series.”
You can check out some of Henderson’s art for Spider-Man 4 here. There’s a lot of cool stuff! Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be. Raimi previously explained that he just couldn’t get the script to the level of greatness that he wanted it to be. He said:
“It was a very painful experience for me. I wanted to make a Spider-Man movie to redeem myself for that. [The aborted] ‘Spider-Man 4’ — that was really what that was about. I wanted to go out on a high note. I didn’t want to just make another one that pretty much worked. I had a really high standard in my mind. And I didn’t think I could get that script to the level that I was hoping for by that start date.”
The director also went on to talk about the villains and how he was looking to cast Bruce Campbell as Mysterio, and also include Kraven the Hunter. He said:
“I miss the really great cameo we had designed for Bruce Campbell. [Mysterio] was one of the possibilities. We had other things in mind, too, but that was one of them. And I missed Kraven the Hunter. We were going to work that character into the next Spider-Man; I always wanted to see Kraven fight Spider-Man on the big screen. I thought that would be really unique. He’s the ultimate hunter, and Spider-Man is like the most agile trickster of the skies. And I wanted to see Peter continue forward as a human being.”
It’s a shame that Raimi never got to tell that story!