Web of Lies: Let's talk about grit, baby.

The stupidity currently flowing out of Sony Pictures should be bottled and sold to smart people who "want to get away from it all" or dropped on our enemies in other countries so that they will annihilate themselves by licking electrical sockets. The decision to scrap Spider-Man 4 and release Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, and Kirsten Dunst is frustrating (sorry, the decision to release Raimi and Maguire is frustrating), but pales in comparison to Sony's proclaimed next move. According to EW, the latest move wasn't some spur-of-the-moment decision: They've been planning a reboot for awhile now either in case what just happened were to happen or as the next film to follow the fourth one. They've had this plan in place to the point that they have a script already...and not just any script, an origin story...and not just any origin story, a "gritty" and "contemporary" story. To quote Jules Winfield from Pulp Fiction, "Well, allow me to retort."

Dear Sony,

Making a "gritty" and "contemporary" Spider-man is a lot like making a sexier Dora the Explorer or a less violent UFC. During the more than 10 years you've owned the rights to this franchise, have you ever read a single Spidey comic? If you were able to stop Scrooge McDuck-ing around, swimming in your gold coins, you may have glanced at even a cover and realized that Spidey's whole gig is not being "gritty." He's anti-gritty. That's his thing. It'd be like making a movie about Ghandi and having him tote a machine gun. It's that against the character. Is there a chance that James Vanderbilt's script doesn't suck and that people are blowing these angles out of proportion? Sure. But this is the guy who last wrote Zodiac, a serial killer movie, and the direction you seem to be suggesting is a move to follow Batman, which Spider-man isn't. Yes, they're both heroes with "man" in their names, but other than that they are diametrical opposites. Look, I stuck by this film series when you switched from mechanical shooters to organic ones, when you cast Kirsten Dunst, when you made Spider-man 3!!! But what you are clearly gearing up to do is a maneuver so stupid that whenever I refer to somebody doing something stupid in the future, I'll likely refer to it as "pulling a Sony." And the three directors rumored have to be a joke. Marc Webb, who shares only a pun-laden name with this project, has only really done the incredibly average (500) Days of Summer. Gary Ross did Seabiscuit. And then there's the third name...the one that will cause me to engage in such verbal acts of hatred I can't help but pray it never happens: Michael Bay. I am not a man of violence, but so help me Sony if this happens and I'm in an elevator with whoever made that decision...pain...lots of pain. There's still hope for you simpletons, for you glue-sniffing paint eaters. Instead of promising a "return to high-school" for Spidey AND a "gritty" movie, just go with the former. Don't do an origin story (we got it already), don't make this a Batman retread. Keep the spirit of fun, cast Anton Yelchin, hire a director with a sense of whimsy and play (what about Jason Reitman?), take some time to speak with the guys who WRITE THE COMICS AT MARVEL (look how much good press they got for Iron Man), and don't biff this up.

Listen, I spent the better part of my life waiting to see Spider-man on the big screen. I was thwarted time and again by idiots like you doing crap like this. Stop it. Just, stop it. You like money, right? You want a ton of it? Make a good movie that appeals to everyone, not a shoe-horned attempt to make Spidey into Batman.

To recap: Stop everything you're doing because you suck and if you hire Michael Bay someone gets hurt.

Thanks.