The Amazing Spider-man

[The Dark Knight]

They could have used Baker at any stage. Another cameo type appearance in Spider-Man 4 as Connors. And a full blown Lizard transformation for Spider-Man 5. It would have been infinitely more superior the longer they delayed the inevitable. And that was their right, in basis of franchise building. But Sony stupidly pulled the rug from under their feet, and will pig headedly charge ahead with this quick fix nonsense. And no matter what, it will have nowhere near the same emotional impact that Baker's would have had.

[Gotham Knight]

They could have used Baker at any stage. Another cameo type appearance in Spider-Man 4 as Connors. And a full blown Lizard transformation for Spider-Man 5. It would have been infinitely more superior the longer they delayed the inevitable. And that was their right, in basis of franchise building. But Sony stupidly pulled the rug from under their feet, and will pig headedly charge ahead with this quick fix nonsense. And no matter what, it will have nowhere near the same emotional impact that Baker's would have had.

FTW

[The Joker]

They could have used Baker at any stage. Another cameo type appearance in Spider-Man 4 as Connors. And a full blown Lizard transformation for Spider-Man 5. It would have been infinitely more superior the longer they delayed the inevitable. And that was their right, in basis of franchise building. But Sony stupidly pulled the rug from under their feet, and will pig headedly charge ahead with this quick fix nonsense. And no matter what, it will have nowhere near the same emotional impact that Baker's would have had.

If Raimi and company were shooting Spider-Man 4 back to back with Spider-Man 5 (which I think was the original plan) that type of scenario would have been outstanding quite frankly.

But with production scaling back and concentrating on just one film (which would have made it's debut in 2012 rather than 2011 since Raimi made it clear to Sony he simply could not make that date), the earliest we would have seen Baker as a full blown Lizard would have been 2014. Which isn't that bad, and would have been exactly 10 years following Baker's on-screen appearance as Dr. Connors in Spider-Man 2 which would have been a nice touch, but as impatient and unforgiving Sony no doubt are (obviously so when it comes to Spider-Man), the notion of Spider-Man 5 being realized, even if 4 was a success at the box office (which I'm sure it would have been), just seems highly questionable to me. Especially in light of what has transpired.

And yeah, if the stars would have aligned for Spider-Man 4, a build up to Baker/Connors turning into the Lizard for Spider-Man 5 would have been amazing. As the idea of having a continuing character such as Dr. Connors undergoing a transformation and thus becoming an villainous adversary would have had great effect. Actually, that type of scenario has always been something I've wanted to see play out with Harvey Dent in the Batman movies. *sigh*

[The Dark Knight]

Well, the scheduling for the "reboot" and the inevitable sequel will more or less align with what Raimi was planning to do. When it all comes down to it, a year is not much to hold out for. It?s either waiting an extra year and having a stable franchise, or right now impatience that polarizes the community. And I don?t think the latter is worth it. The terrible thing about this is that it was so avoidable.

I do believe Lizard was going to happen in Spider-Man 5. That?s just pushing things back by one extra film. And by doing that, I cannot for the life of me see the big deal. There was not some urgent rush to do Lizard. Spider-Man has tons of other villains, and as I said, delaying increases pain for when he does flip out.

And if Raimi?s Spider-Man 4 did clean up the box-office like his other three, the very notion that another Raimi outing would be highly questionable goes to show the complete lack of logic and reason at Sony.

If this so called ?reboot? has one iota of criticism, are they going to have their hand hovering over the reboot button again?!

[The Joker]

That's exactly what's so ironic about the Reboot. Sony wants Spidey 4 for summer 2011. Raimi says he simply cannot hit that date. Theoretically pushing it back atleast to 2012. Sony then decides that's just taking too long, and makes the decision for a reboot. Which .. is scheduled to be released .. in 2012.

Personally, I think that line of thinking says Sony obviously found the Raimi Spider-Man franchise less viable than it was before Spider-Man 3. Why that is is anyones guess? Especially considering that 3 was the most successful financially of the series (studios usually like financially successful movies, right?). But apparently Sony had been entertaining the thought (atleast) or rebooting the franchise for some time before their official announcement on doing so. Of course there was word of Sony being dissatisfied with the Spider-Man 4 script. Which is kinda hilarious since the Spider-Man 3 script was perfectly A OK. And of course the fact that the Vulture was going to be the villain (Sony completely booted that character right out of Spider-Man 3 in favor of drooling all over Venom), but did these issues constitute a out and out reboot of the franchise??

It's evident that Sony had ulterior motives with Spider-Man unknown to Raimi, and I'm sure he was just as surprised as anyone when Sony made their decision on rebooting. But if a director can helm three hugely successful movies in a franchise, and STILL be essentially told to go home, then indeed ... there is ALOT going on within Sony that is questionable.

[johnnygobbs]

I agree with much of what has been said.  Like The Dark Knight states, The Lizard would have been much more effective as a villain had Dr Curt Connors been introduced as Parker's friend and mentor over a string of films prior to his transformation.  On the other hand, like The Joker, I don't get the impression that Sam Raimi had any definite intention of introducing The Lizard as a villain in the imminent future despite building up the character in Spider-Man 2 and 3.

As big a fan as I am of the first two Spider-Man films I must also admit that I'm not as disenheartened with Sony's decision to reboot as some others are, mainly because I was somewhat disappointed with Spider-Man 3.  Spider-Man 3 does work effectively as the closing part of a trilogy, but after introducing Venom so early on in the franchise I couldn't see where the filmmakers could feasibly go from there.  Any follow-up villain would seem relatively unimposing by comparison.  Also, I believe that the filmmakers fumbled Venom's introduction, which also closed off any opportunity of introducing Man-Wolf (whose alter-ego, John Jameson was inadvertently responsible for bringing the symbiote back with him from space).  They also closed off any chance of either expanding Venom's character or introducing Carnage, by killing off Eddie Brock at the film's climax.

Another aspect of the franchise which makes me question whether Raimi and co would definitely have introduced The Lizard is the aforementioned John Jameson.  He was introduced in Spider-man 2 and promptly forgotten about in the sequel which closed off the possibility of seeing him become Man-Wolf.

I feel bad for Raimi. I truly feel his hand was forced on Spider-Man 3 as far as Venom etc goes, and despite the big box-office I can't help thinking that Sony were also disappointed with the film itself.

[The Joker]

Agreed, Johnny.

Sony most definately did not view Raimi as the guy who could do no wrong with the Spider-Man franchise following Spider-Man 3 (despite all the revenue that film made them). Otherwise, he would be making Spider-Man 4 as we speak. However, Sony has only themselves to blame if they were in any way dissatisfied with Spider-Man 3 as a film due to their inane mandates, which resulted in a convoluted movie with numerous subplots.

The whole Lizard issue is an interesting one, because I really don't see exactly why the Lizard wasn't going to be the villain for Spider-Man 4? The build up was already there due to Baker's previous appearances, and arguably the Lizard was the popular choice for the next villain following Spider-Man 3, so what exactly was the hold up? The Lizard, I would assume, is more popular than the Vulture (maybe Raimi just likes Vulture more?), and though I completely loved the idea of John Malkovich as the Vulture, I never understood the reasoning of why the Vulture/Vultress storyline had to precede that of an established character/villain that fans have been wanting to see finally realized for years.

[johnnygobbs]

I always thought that Raimi should have concentrated on the early Spider-Man villains first, like the aforementioned Vulture, who I like, and The Lizard, and then he could introduce the later, more deadly villains like Venom etc.  Admittedly, this was not strictly Raimi's fault but I wished he had stood his ground and refused to utilise Venom in Spider-Man 3 especially bearing in mind how well his judgement has served the first two films.

[The Dark Knight]

http://splashpage.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/spider-man.jpg

Meh at the suit and Garfield. I don't get any wow factor. It doesn't alleviate any of my concerns.

The old one is better.

[johnnygobbs]

http://splashpage.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/spider-man.jpg

Meh at the suit and Garfield. I don't get any wow factor. It doesn't alleviate any of my concerns.

The old one is better.

Maybe it's just me, but I was pleasantly surprised by the pic.  Let's face it, in redoing the Spider-man suit the film-makers of the reboot were essentially being required to redesign the wheel (I know Spider-man's costumes has had many changes throughout the decades, but ultimately, everyone wants to see him in the classic red and blue costume, at least for the first film).

However, the film-makers have managed to retain the classic costume but tweak it just enough to differentiate it from the Raimi films.  Moreover, IMHO Garfield genuinely evokes the image of Peter Parker from the comic-books in this shot.