James Vanderbilt Wields Another Web with Spider-man 5 and 6 for Sony

By Kevin Coll • August 17, 2009 • 3 Comments

James Vanderbilt, the original writer for Spider-man 4, who’s ideas were not embraced by Sam Raimi when Sony managed to bring the director back with his star MacGuire for fourth installment is back on for 2 more spidey films. Vanderbilt’s Spider-Man 4 script was immediately polished by David Lindsey-Abaire, a playwright famouse for his “Rabbit-Hole,” now Raimi has brought in a third writer to polish a new draft, Gary Ross.

So execs at Sony did like Vanderbilt and have set the writer up to pen a 5th and 6th installment of the web-slinging Peter Parker Marvel comic. As mentioned Raimi didn’t embrace all of Vanderbilt’s ideas, but execs at Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios did. Vanderbilt has been hired to pen the fifth and sixth movies, which have an interconnected storyline. That’s what was originally discussed when Vanderbilt signed on to write Spider-Man 4, but the idea of shooting a fourth and fifth film back to back with the original cast was scrapped, most likely because they will not get a commitment from Raimi for a fifth film being that he is directing World of Warcraft. Maguire and Dunst were locked into the first three pictures and made a new deal for Spider-Man 4, but it’s unclear how long they want to continue with the series.

Sources say it was unclear whether Raimi, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst will be back for more after the fourth film but if they aren’t, Vanderbilt’s script would be the blueprint for a franchise reboot.

So I liked everything I heard until reboot was mentioned. I think instead of reboot Vernderbilt’s script should just be a Spider-man story, no Mary-Jane, no Aunt Mae, no Gwen Stacy, just Spider-man fighting villains, etc. Rather than reboot it make it just another story like the comics. I just do not like a reboot so close to the original film but tell that to Hulk fans. I guess it really doesn’t matter a reboot could be cool with new cast , new director, new introduction it has been 7 years since the first movie.

What do you think?

If Vanderbilt has to reboot the franchise, what would you do different?

If it continues then what do you see in a 5th and 6th film ?

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