SPIDER-MAN 4 Got Scrapped Because Of Sam Raimi’s Obsession With AVATAR?

Rama’s SCREEN reader Frankie pointed me to this article at Vulture which I find interesting because all this time we’ve been led to believe that the only reason that SPIDER-MAN 4 got dropped and completely replaced by a reboot was because the studio couldn’t agree with Sam Raimi on the script, blaming it mostly on the studio for not wanting to give Raimi what he wanted. Well, this article puts the blame on Raimi instead, more specifically his stubborn demands to get to SPIDER-MAN 4 to have the same treatment that James Cameron gave his precious AVATAR…

production insiders tell Vulture that after seeing James Cameron’s fully immersive film, Raimi wanted all sorts of envelope-pushing CGI (though not 3-D, which the studio was considering). Such effects would take more money and, just as crucially, more time. But the studio, whose corporate parent Sony must answer to Wall Street, had set a strict May 6, 2011 release date, and missing that date would mean depriving Sony of a billion dollars in revenue. “Every movie is a power struggle,” explains one producer on the Sony lot familiar with the fracas. “But the tipping point was that Sam wanted to do certain things that would push the envelope in terms of [special effects] ‘toys’ and other visual stimulation, and Sony didn’t feel that was essential to the franchise.”

Not certain how true this is but like I said before, it’s interesting because it lets you see the problem from a different perspective.
Who’s actually the bad guy in that scenario? Because it’s rather in a blurred line. There is a matter of creativity, wanting to bring the cinematic viewing experience to the next level but there is also the business aspect that sends you back to harsh reality.

The script was traveling from screenwriter Jamie Vanderbilt to David Lindsay-Abaire to Gary Ross and Raimi hated each rewrite. And so Raimi and studio brought in scribe Alvin Sargent, who co-penned Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, this all happened before the reboot was finally announced.
So what’s the story that Raimi wanted to do? The article laid it down like this…

Peter Parker gets over MJ, finds a new girl, falls in love. But: Peter also discovers her father is actually the Vulture, a naughty green guy with wings to be played by John Malkovich. Peter is torn between the love of his new lady and taking down the Vulture. Being a Spandex tight-ass, he decides to take down the Vulture, and kills him. This patricide goes down poorly with Peter’s new fiancée, and she rejects him. Despondent, Peter decides to abandon his superpowers, and Movie No. 4 ends with Peter Parker throwing away his Spider-Man mask, and audiences wondering if they are watching Superman II.

Yikes! I’m sorry but that was awful.. if Raimi had gotten the 3D AVATAR-like toy he was demanding, it still wouldn’t be a great movie.. not with that lame storyline.
I don’t know Vulture in the comic books well enough but throwing in a Darth Vader-esque element just seems desperate in my opinion.
Ok, and now we have SPIDER-MAN reboot chronicling Peter Parker in high school with Marc Webb as the director, using James Vanderbilt‘s gritty and contemporary story, scheduled to open in 2012. We’ll see how that one goes.