Spider-Man 4: No More! Raimi and Maguire Out!

And things seemed to be working themselves out. News today that hit harder than a punch from Venom, the planned follow-up to Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man 4, will NOT in fact be made, not with the current director, Sam Raimi, or franchise anchor Toby Maguire. Multiple news sources began reporting that Raimi, who had been in disputes with the forces at Sony over the creative direction of the series going back to the last film, walked away from the project. Pressure to meet a 2012 release deadline have been said to be a factor in the decision for Raimi's split as well, especially with tension over the script. That's not the only big news that Sony laid out concerning the wall-crawler! Sony has also announced that they will be rebooting the series as a whole, with a whole new cast to go along with it and a script penned by James Vanderbilt. Sony is still shooting for a Spider-Man movie of some sort to be released in 2012, saying that, "Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next 'Spider-Man' hits theaters in the summer of 2012," adding that he will be, "a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises." Co-chairman of Sony pictures, Amy Pascal, said that the original three movies had raised the bar in the genre of the comic book movie and that they were, "very excited about the creative possibilities that come from returning to Peter's roots." This news comes on the heels of reported news that John Malkovich had been cast as The Vulture, the villain Raimi had wanted in the fourth installment to begin with, over the feelings of Sony that The Black Cat would help with subplots. It appears that neither party would blink, and the long-awaited next installment is on the scrap heap.