Sam Raimi recently spoke about the Spider-Man franchise and when asked about complaints that there were too many bad guys in Spider-Man 3, he responded:
“I think having so many villains detracted from the experience. I would agree with the criticism.”
So it sounds like there will be fewer foes in the next installment. Raimi said he had learned some new lessons and storytelling tricks from his recent horror flick Drag Me to Hell which was a smaller and more intimate production.
He said:
“I think I’ve learned about the importance of getting to the point and the importance of having limitations, and I’m hoping to take that into a production where I’m actually allowed to explore with more of the tools to pull it off with a little more splendour.
“I hope I don’t lose that edge that I’ve just found. That would be my approach to Spider-Man 4: to get back to the basics.”
Apart from that, we don’t yet know much about the story of Spider-Man 4 – Raimi says they are in the process of working out who the villains will be – and we know even less about the fifth and sixth films at this stage. There’s talk that they could be a reboot with new actors and a new director, but that’s unsubstantiated.
Raimi was asked by MTV if he’d return to direct Spider-Man 5 and 6 but with those films so far away at this point, he has no definite answer. He said:
“Every time I make one of the Spider-Man movies, I have to ask myself, is the character still intriguing to me? Do I love the character? Am I dying to tell the next story of Peter Parker and Spider-Man? And so far the answer has been yes.
“I’ve got to be super-excited about it. If I can’t reach that level of commitment and excitement, I think then there’d be somebody else better to do justice to the story. You have to ask me in two-and-half years.”
He was also asked if Spider-Man was always his favorite comic book character and said:
“Well, at different times I’ve had different favorites. Batman was my favorite for a tremendous amount of time and then when I got a little older, Spider-Man.”
And on whether he’d like to adapt any other comic book crimefighters into films, he said:
“I’ve always loved the Shadow. I tried to get the chance to direct the movie years ago but they wouldn’t hire me. I read a few of the pulp novels that they had and the character was very mysterious. I liked the intensity with which he dealt with his foes. It was uncompromising.”
