Note: Please do not add "Co-Star Bill Nunn died in 2016", because this project was thought of before he died. Spider-Man 4 was the planned sequel to Spider-Man 3, for what would have been the 4th film in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man franchise. It was planned to be released on May 6, 2011.
Plot
The storyline for Spider-Man 4 was going to take place 5 years after the events of Spider-Man 3. Peter Parker was going to leave Mary-Jane and enter into a new relationship with Felicia Hardy, A.K.A. the Black-Cat. However, they were going to be brought into conflict when Peter was going to kill Felicia's father, the sinister super villain known as the Vulture. The planned script ended with a despondant and regretful Peter losing his powers and discarding his Spider-Man suit in a dark alleyway on a stormy night, ending the franchise on a sour note.
Cast
- Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker/Spider-Man
- Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson
- John Malkovich as Adrian Toomes/Vulture
- Anne Hathaway as Felicia Hardy/Black Cat
- Rosemary Harris as May Parker
- J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson
- Bill Nunn as Joseph "Robbie" Robertson
- Elizabeth Banks as Betty Brant
- Bryce Dallas Howard as Gwen Stacy
- Dylan Baker as Curt Connors/The Lizard
- James Cromwell as George Stacy
- Bruce Campell as Quentin Beck/Mysterio
- Elya Baskin as Mr. Ditkovich
- Mageina Tova as Ursula Ditkovich
- Michael Papajohn as Dennis Carradine/The Carjacker
Why It Was Cancelled
- Spider-Man 3 was not well received by critics, audiences and fans.
- Sam Raimi was displeased with how Spider-Man 3 turned out.
- The release date became an issue since Sam Raimi couldn't meet the Summer 2011 release date that Sony wanted.
- Sony wanted multiple villains in the film but Sam Raimi wanted to stick with only one.
- The storyline championed by Raimi was dour and downbeat, with a main antagonist that wasn't seen as marketable enough by Sony executives, who preferred someone more visually interesting, like Electro or Carnage..
Results
- Spider-Man 4 was permanently cancelled.
- Sony and Marvel hit the reset button with two reboot films The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014. Then in 2017, Sony released the most recent reboot Spider-Man: Homecoming and its 2019 sequel Spider-Man: Far From Home as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
- Elements from the cancelled film would be used for the two reboot film series The Amazing Spider-Man and the MCU films Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far from Home, as well as the 2018 animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
- Sam Raimi, the director of the original Spider-Man trilogy is directing the upcoming Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness film and could bring Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to MCU.
Trivia
- Jeffrey Henderson later revealed in June of 2016 the storyboards for Spider-Man 4 showing what the film might have been like had if it was made.