Sam Raimi says he still thinks about his canceled fourth Spider-Man movie

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

In 2007 Sony released the third outing in the highly successful SPIDER-MAN movie series from Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire – SPIDER-MAN 3 – which did well at the box office despite harsh reception. While this need not be explained for anyone who remembers the time so well, it’s easy to forget there were still plans for a fourth outing with the same team — with a villain (Vulture) planned and everything — all before plans were halted and the series was rebooted…twice. Like any filmmaker in this situation (Lookin’ at you Guillermo del Toro) Raimi revealed he often looks back on the movie that could’ve been and was really excited about what they were cooking up.

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Rami has been hot on the promotion trail for the new movie he produced, CRAWL, and has been fielding all sorts of questions about Spider-Man now that the new movie of the second rebooted iteration is out, SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME. Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment he said he still thinks about what his fourth movie could’ve been had they got the chance to bring it to life.

“I think about it all the time. It’s hard not to because each summer another Spider-Man film comes out! So when you have an unborn one, you can’t help but think what might have been. But I try to focus on what will be, and not look into the past.”

Launching in 2002 when superhero movies were on the upswing thanks to movies like BLADE and X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN sent things into the stratosphere to become one of the biggest movies ever. In 2004 SPIDER-MAN 2 was almost as big, so hopes for SPIDER-MAN 3 were – to put it as mildly as Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin giving a bad-guy speech – quite high. The movie broke the opening weekend record in 2007 ($150 million) but received a wave of bad reception and is more remembered for how silly Peter Parker’s hair looked than anything else. Though the goal at first seemed to be to rethink and recover so as to gain back some creditability and fans for the fourth movie, plans were scrapped and Andrew Garfield took on the red and blue suit for the rebooted THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and then Tom Holland did the same for the new slate of MCU movies.  

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Raimi doesn’t seem to harbor any ill will against the new movies and even approved a certain cameo that happens during the credits of FAR FROM HOME (via Entertainment Tonight). Still, it seems he and everyone involved had high hopes for the fourth movie, and even storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson posted some 'boards of scenes they had planned involving Vulture (via IndieWire). “We were working on some crazy cool stuff, because everyone…felt that Spidey 3 was a bit of a ‘missed opportunity’, [and[ really wanted to help Sam take SM4 to another level so he could end the series on a high note,” Henderson wrote.

While SPIDER-MAN is near-inarguably the worst of the movies featuring the character, I'm also a bit bummed the series didn't get what could've been an epic final chapter. Raimi and his crew all seem to know exactly what the third movie's problem was (there were several), and they were probably keen not to make the same mistakes. Perhaps considering the character's on-going hit after hit — including INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, the Spider-Man PS4 game, and now FAR FROM HOME — maybe Sony would give Raimi some cash and a chance to do a one-off fourth movie with the gang back together. If Warner Bros. and DC can put out movies outside their extended movie universe (JOKER), why can't Sony?