Everything We Know About Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 (And Why It Didn’t Happen)

Out of any superhero, it feels like Spider-Man has been worked the hardest over the past 25 years. Everybody’s favorite neighborhood web-slinger has had not one, not two, not even three, but four separate films franchises over the course of the last few decades. From Shameik Moore to Tom Holland to Andrew Garfield, there have been plenty of strong actors that have portrayed Spider-Man over the years. But it was Tobey Maguire who starred in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and helped redefine what superhero movies could look like as a blockbuster. In just five years, the duo teamed up to create a trilogy that dominated the box office and created some of the best action scenes in Marvel history. While the franchise stopped at the trilogy, there were originally concrete plans for Sam Raimi to make Spider-Man 4.

It’s now been nearly 20 years since Sony pulled the plug, but we’ve heard rumblings of Sam Raimi revisiting his Spider-Man franchise for some time now. However, the more time that passes, the less likely that the sequel will eventually happen. But what would Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 have looked like? Here’s everything we know about the sequel that wound up on the cutting room floor and why it never happened in the end.

A Villain Vending Machine

With Zodiac screenwriter Jamie Vanderbilt tapped to pen the script, Spider-Man 4 appeared to be in very good hands. There were countless villains that hadn’t even been mentioned yet that could take on Spider-Man for the sequel. In Spider-Man 3, we were teased with a possible extended future arc of Dr. Curt Connors (Dylan Baker), who would offer up a tantalizing tale as The Lizard. There were also rumors of Spider-Man nemesis Kraven the Hunter finally being given his chance at the limelight.

But it was The Vulture who was picked as the best choice to take on the role as the main villain in Spider-Man 4. The high-flying supervillain would have made for an entertaining cinematic match up for Spider-Man that would have been anything but boring. And to make the “what could have been” scenario sting even more, John Malkovich confirmed in 2010 that he had been chosen to portray The Vulture before the film was scrapped. To make matters even more interesting, Anne Hathaway was chosen to play Felicia Hardy, changed to be the daughter of The Vulture for the movie. The star-studded additions wouldn’t have stopped there as Bruce Campbell was confirmed by Sam Raimi as the actor picked to play Mysterio in an explosive cameo sequence.

Heading in an Aimless Direction

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Despite raking in nearly $900 million at the worldwide box office, Spider-Man 3 was viewed as the weakest entry in the trilogy. With a measly 63% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, the sequel was by far the worst-reviewed film in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man franchise. With that in mind, the filmmaker was determined to turn things around with Spider-Man 4 and steer the franchise back in the right direction. Sam Raimi was set on utilizing The Vulture as his big bad in the film after being shot down in Spider-Man 3 after reportedly butting heads with executives at Sony and Marvel.

With pressure on Sam Raimi to deliver another massive blockbuster hit, Sony targeted May 2011 as the original release date for Spider-Man 4 (a tweet confirming this news remains on their X account). There was just one problem. Despite bringing on the accomplished Vanderbilt to write the script, the studio hired playwright David Lindsay-Abaire to rewrite the script. But they didn’t stop there. Sony also hired screenwriters Gary Ross and Alvin Sargent to polish up the script afterward. After all was said and done, Sam Raimi was rumored to strongly dislike the direction that the story had been steered into. Too many cooks may spoil the pot, but it appears that too many writers might just spoil the script as well. By 2010, Sony saw the writing on the wall and canned Spider-Man 4 and opted to reboot the entire franchise instead.

Let’s Keep This Train Moving

As mentioned before, Spider-Man 3 wasn’t exactly a critic-darling or even a fan-favorite in the franchise. Yet somehow the movie managed to rake in more money at the global box office than the previous two entries. With that in mind, Sony was undoubtedly thrilled to keep the gravy train moving. The studio had seen the trilogy gross over $2.5 billion and there were no signs of the franchise slowing down, so why slam on the brakes? In fact, they were so excited that Deadline reported that Sony was eyeing the possibility of a simultaneous production of both Spider-Man 4 and Spider-Man 5 in order to capitalize on the popularity of the beloved franchise.

The back-to-back shoot would have also made it possible to keep the core cast intact for both films and save some money in the process. It would have also given the film crew the opportunity to flesh out the story to span across two films instead of jam-packing everything into just one. Obviously, that never happened and the studio ultimately decided to keep the Sam Raimi Spider-Man franchise as a trilogy and reboot the character with The Amazing Spider-Man instead.

While there have been rumors of revisiting the possibility of Spider-Man 4 in recent years, nothing has been confirmed as of yet. But if the Spider-Verse has taught us anything, it’s that anything is possible.