With the massive
fiscal success and equally as massive critical and popular disdain for Spider-Man
3, Sony’s probably surer than ever that any collection of light and
sound labeled “Spider-Man” that could run in a projector for 90 minutes or so
would be an automatic money maker regardless of budget of quality. And they
wouldn’t be wrong to think that, necessarily. But the logical conclusion to
that line of thought is that there’s no “need” for the likes of Sam Raimi at
the helm or any number of good actors in the cast. Raimi’s been realistic about
this, and in a recent interview, he touched briefly upon the prospect of Spidey
4 going on without him as well as who he’d have as villains were he to helm it.
The
latter’s what you want to know about most, so here goes: Raimi opined that “I’d would love to see Electro, Vulture,
maybe the Sinister Six as a team.” If the Sinister Six happens, of course, that
means we would likely be looking forward to more random 3-second meetings in
back alleys in order to explain their collaboration, much like we “enjoyed” in
part three. This would also mean that despite a likely bloated running time, we’d
still have half-formed caricatures masquerading as fully-realized adversaries,
much as we also did in part trois. That
Raimi would even consider it would seem to indicate two things:
1)
That
he learned nothing from the mess of the last film.
2)
That
he’s forgotten about the two-film set up for Dr. Curt Connors (Dylan Baker) to
become The Lizard.
But on
that second point, you’d be mistaken. Raimi also mentioned “I love Dylan Baker as a person, and I really
like the character he is developing. The Lizard is probably one of my favorite
characters.” The “development” of Dylan Baker is arguable being that he’s
only been granted a few brief scenes of dialogue and certainly hasn’t
progressed as any sort of recognizable character from film-to-film, certainly
not in a way remotely comparable to James Franco’s arc. But I’d much prefer
that they take those small building blocks and expand upon them in the next
sequel rather sidelining him again while adding any or all of the Sinister Six
in addition to the usual Peter/MJ domestic shenanigans.
Raimi’s
input will likely be marginalized anyway as he, Tobey Maguire, and Kirsten Dunst
have unofficially made themselves into a rather expensive package deal for Sony
to bring back. And when you’re guaranteed huge profits, what incentive would
Sony have to add to the huge upfront costs by resigning these three when the
same people will come out to see much cheaper replacements as long as the
spectacle is upped and there’s a neat trailer involved? And even if they bit
the bullet and resigned them, would that even be any better for the franchise
considering the flat, flabby note they ended on?
The real
kicker question is: Won’t you go see it and likely buy the DVD regardless?