Peter Parker can catch all sorts of villains in his webs, but the one thing Spider-Man couldn’t bring to Sony Pictures was a workable script — and budget — for the $2.5-billion franchise’s fourth installment, derailing one of the most lucrative movie series in Hollywood history.
Less than a week after the studio said it was postponing production on the fourth web-slinger movie over story problems, Sony on Monday pulled the plug on the project as it was being conceived with director Sam Raimi after he told the studio he wasn’t comfortable moving forward with the sequel, originally scheduled for release in May 2011.
Star Tobey Maguire, who has played the arachnid superhero in the previous three “Spider-Man” films, is also bowing out, as is his on-screen love interest, Kirsten Dunst. The studio said it would hire a new star and director and re-boot the movie as a story about Parker’s early life as a “teenager grappling with contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises.” Because Sony is essentially starting from scratch, the studio has pushed the picture’s release to 2012.
The first three movies also made a significant difference to the income at the previously publicly traded Marvel, which is now less reliant on “Spider-Man” earnings since recently being acquired by the Walt Disney Co. Thanks to royalties from Sony as well as its 50% cut of merchandise on 2007′s “Spider-Man 3,” Marvel reported $122 million of revenue.
Sony and the filmmakers have been scrambling for weeks to keep “Spider-Man 4” together, according to people close to the project.
There have been four writers on the sequel. In addition to a draft by Vanderbilt, the studio hired Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (“Rabbit Hole”) and Gary Ross (“Seabiscuit”) to revise the script. Alvin Sargent (who has writing credits on the last two “Spider-Man” films) then spent the last six weeks trying to pull the disparate screenplays into a cohesive whole.
But neither the studio nor Raimi could agree on the ultimate direction of the script, which was centered on the legendary comic book character’s becoming reinspired and falling in love with a new girl, said people close to the situation. Because the film involves extensive special effects, complicated battle sequences and elaborate sets, Raimi would have had to start shooting in March to make Sony’s proposed release date in May 2011. The director felt that didn’t give him enough time to solve the screenplay problems, said people familiar with the matter.
Time wasn’t the only obstacle. Raimi, who declined to comment, had other concerns. He was unwilling to agree to the budget constraints Sony had set. The studio wanted “Spider-Man 4″ to cost less than “Spider-Man 3,” which was closer to $300 million.
Over the weekend, the parties tried to figure out a way to get “Spider-Man” flying but without success. On Monday morning Raimi called Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures, and Matt Tolmach, a top production executive, and informed them he wasn’t going forward.
The resulting film is expected to be far less costly than the production Raimi had envisioned for his version. Sony wanted to make the picture for about $230 million, which the director thought was not enough given his ambitions.
The movie is being written by James Vanderbilt, whose credits include “Zodiac” and “The Rundown.” The new film, which does not yet have an announced star or director, will be produced by “Spider-Man” veterans Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad of Marvel Studios.
“This is a bittersweet moment for us because while it is hard to imagine Spider-Man in anyone else’s hands, I know that this was a day that was inevitable,” Matt Tolmach, president of Columbia Pictures, said in a statement.
“Working on the Spider-Man movies was the experience of a lifetime for me,” Raimi said in a statement. “While we were looking forward to doing a fourth one together, the studio and Marvel have a unique opportunity to take the franchise in a new direction, and I know they will do a terrific job.”
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