There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so
odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t
even passively take part.
And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the
wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make
it stop.
And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people
who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from
working at all.
– Mario Savio, December 2, 1964
God bless Sam Raimi. God bless him. IESB’s report from last month has proven to be true, and Spider-Man 4 is being delayed because Sam Raimi is so sick at heart with the way Sony is dealing with Spidey. He wants the Vulture, a classy, original villain from the Spider-Man rogues gallery, to be the baddie in his new film. Sony wants someone else. Anyone else. Probably fucking Carnage or some other retardbait character like that*.
See, Sam learned his lesson with Spider-Man 3, where he wanted The Vulture and Sony made him use Venom. While the film is not half as bad as the virulent hatemongers** would have you believe, it is troubled from the ground up. And part of that was Raimi not getting Venom and not using him right. Part of it was the fact that Venom is a junky character.
Raimi only came back for Spidey 4 because he knows everybody hates the last one and he wants to go out strong. But even so, how long will he bother fighting with Sony about a villain? The film is on the verge of not making a 2011 release date, and if the fight goes on I suspect it will be on the verge of having a new director… and then possibly getting rushed to meet a date. Please, please, please Sony – don’t fuck this up. Please don’t run Raimi off. And if you run Raimi off, please don’t hustle in Brett Ratner to direct Spider-Man 4.
* No offense, but if you like Carnage and are older than 12 you have serious, serious issues. Seek help immediately.
** Ooh, there’s a good villain. Hitler’s brain in a superpowered body… in a purple KKK mask!