While a financial success, Spider-Man 3 was a real let down for fans of the series, and didn’t even satisfy its maker; Sam Raimi (the writer and director of all three Spider-Man features) who was forced to make changes to the script (including tacking on an extra villain in the form of Venom) that didn’t gel with his vision of the film; and is one of the reasons that Sony has decided to give the series a full reboot, rather than produce a fourth film in Raimi’s series.
The James Vanderbilt (Zodiac) written remake will be focussing on Peter Parker (Spiderman) as a 17-year-old high-school student who gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and has to cope with gaining superpowers (the ability to scale walls and fire webs from his hands amongst others) on top of shifting hormones, and the death of his uncle, and is planned as a much more emotionally driven, and realistic, telling of the tale that previous films.
Previous Spidey actor Tobey Macguire (Seabiscuit) is now being replaced by Andrew Garfield; the young British actor who’s possibly best known for his role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus; in the film that is still officially listed as ‘Untitled Spider-Man Reboot’, and due to be directed by Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer).
There’s little word on any other cast members as yet, although announcements should start breaking soon, as filming is due to being in Los Angeles this December, ahead of a theatrical release of July 3rd 2012; giving it a full year of post-production to truly hone the special effects which, due to a massively reduced budget, are going to be much less flashy than those of Spidey’s last outing.
