Which Spider-Man 4 do you want to see? You might think this is a trick question. It is not. Currently, there appears to be the possibility of two versions of a “fourth Spider-Man movie” in co-existing franchises. One would involve Tom Holland, and be set in the MCU as it continues to explore where Peter Parker is following the events of the blockbuster sequel Spider-Man: No Way Home. The other, however, follows original Spider-Man director Sam Raimi, as he ventures back to the franchise to make a fourth Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire in the lead. Maguire played Peter Parker in No Way Home. He beamed back to his multiverse at the end of that movie. And fans have been lobbying for Raimi to make Spider-Man 4 ever since.
The director has acknowledged those calls. He’s even expressed interest in doing it, or maybe taking on Avengers: Secret Wars (which might include Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man in a massive Marvel team up). But during a conversation with The Wrap, Raimi went one step further, breaking down what his approach to the story of Spider-Man 4 might be. And I, for one, started to get really excited about this possibility. Raimi told the trade:
I think if we were to make a fourth Spider-Man film, we'd have to figure out the journey that Tobey Maguire's character would be going on and what obstacles he had to overcome to achieve that growth personally. And I hope that the villain would be chosen based on a representation of that obstacle.
This is wild. This isn’t a director politely giving an answer about how they might “love” to do a project, and telling fans to wait and see. This is Raimi applying real thought on how he’d ease back into the Spider-Man franchise given the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, and even how Raimi would like to have Peter’s journey impact the choice of the villain in that sequel. Sony, are you listening to this?
This isn’t the first time that Sam Raimi contemplated a fourth Spider-Man. As I documented in my official book about Spider-Man’s Hollywood history, Raimi worked very hard on Spider-Man 4 in the months and years after Spider-Man 3, which wasn’t well received (despite the fact that it made boatloads of money). The director didn’t want his time on the series to be represented by that movie, and went so far as to map out a plot that pit Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man against The Vulture (played by John Malkovich). There’s concept art showing this. There are models of what Vulture might have looked like… and it was far more comic-book accurate than the version that Michael Keaton played in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
So, will this happen? Here’s the thing: Sony’s Spider-Man universe is lost at the moment. They have the Venom series, though it’s coming to a close. They have Kraven the Hunter coming up, but they’re also suffocated by the failure of Madame Web. One way to save this is to FINALLY implement a Spider-Man into that side of the universe, without affecting Tom Holland’s MCU arc, and bringing purpose to the Sony Spider-Verse movies. It would instantly lend urgency to Sony’s universe. It basically needs to happen.
We’ll continue to track news and updates on upcoming Spider-Man projects, of which there are many. Basically, we just want ANY Spider-Man 4. Two of them would be even better.
