Web of Lies: Spider-man 4 no more...ever

In just the last few minutes, Nikki Finke had the following (heart) breaking news: "Mike Fleming and I have just confirmed that Sony Pictures decided today to reboot the Spider-Man franchise after franchise director Sam Raimi pulled out of Spider-Man 4 because he felt he couldn't make its summer release date and keep the film's creative integrity."

Wow.

Wow. Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Look, we knew things were bad and getting worse, what with a script that had been passed around like a fifth-grade beer that had gotten so water-down with studio backwash that it was no longer palatable. Sam Raimi said enough was enough, realized he made the best Spidey movie he could make (Spider-man 2) and walked away. Good. For. Him. Now, the hard part: What comes next.

The word reboot causes my testes to find a new nesting place. We don't need another origin story. We don't need another "who is Spider-man" movie. We need to do what they do with Bond: recast and move on. Why back up? Why not move forward? The exciting part is thinking of the directors I would LIKE to see playing with this sandbox, and the actors/actresses I'd like to see up in there. We'll no doubt be exploring those in the coming days, but for now let me say that I'd rather have no Spider-man 4 than the Spider-man 4 that was on the way. Weak-script, lame-villain bullshit does nothing to further my love affair with this character. Hats off to everyone for this trilogy (well, everyone but Kirsten Dunst). Now let's see what someone else can do...oh, I should mention that is IF they can do anything. Not only are there major copyright lawsuits coming up (Jack Kirby's estate just filed one), but there's also the whole "curse of Spidey" to consider. Filming the guy once was hard; starting over may be impossible. Sadface.