Concept Art for Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN 4 Features Spidey Fighting Mysterio and The Vulture
A cool collection of concept art from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 has surfaced, and some of it features our friendly neighborhood hero fighting Mysterio and The Vulture. For those of you who don't remember, John Malkovich was being eyed for the role of The Vulture, and Anne Hathaway was set to play The Vulturess, which would have been a strange new version of Felicia Hardy/Black Cat. The movie was about to go into production when Sony Pictures cancelled it and decided to reboot the franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man. It would've been cool to see Mysterio make his big screen debut.
The storyboard art you see here was created by artist, writer, and filmmaker Jeffrey Henderson. According to the artist, Raimi wanted to cast Bruce Campbell in the role of Mysterio, which would have been awesome! He also explained to io9, "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.”
I would have really loved to see Raimi make his Spider-Man 4 film. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be.
