Grant Curtis, a producer of Marvel’s Moon Knight and all three of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, hopes a Tobey Maguire-starring Spider-Man 4 will one day see the light of day.
Raimi had been in the works with Sony to make a follow-up movie to Spider-Man 3, and a tentative release date for May 6, 2011, was even announced, but the movie never came to be due to the Drag Me to Hell director being unhappy with the script he was mocking up and deciding to abandon the project.
Initial reports indicated The Vulture would have been the main antagonist in the movie, with John Malkovich and Ben Kingsley being considered for the role at one point. Another possible villain, reportedly upon the insistence of Sony, may have been The Lizard, who was seemingly set up in Spider-Man 2 and 3 with the inclusion of Dylan Baker’s Dr. Curt Connors.
The Vulture character’s possible inclusion in a fourth film was also seemingly confirmed by storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson releasing concept art for the character back in 2016.
In an interview with IO9, Curtis explained he believes there are many more stories to tell from the Raimi-verse of Spider-Man films.
“The Spider-Man movies we made were an incredible opportunity career-wise. As a fan, I love the narratives that were generated from those three movies. There were other stories within those movies that did not get told. I hope someday, as any Spider-Man fan would tell you, that all those stories come out and that narrative continues.”
Though 2007’s Spider-Man 3 is generally thought of as a disappointment for fans of the franchise, that is mostly due to the inclusion of Topher Grace’s Venom, a character who we now know was only in the movie upon the insistence of producer Avi Arad. Raimi initially didn’t want to include the character due to what he called his “lack of humanity.”
Now that Tobey Maguire made a return to the character of Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the behemoth blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home, it seems entirely possibly — however fleeting — that a Spider-Man 4 just might come to pass after all. Maguire’s own allusion to not closing the chapter on the character also gives us a shred of hope for the possibilities.
As for Curtis, you can catch the Marvel series he produced, Moon Knight, on Disney Plus beginning Wednesday. And Raimi has made his long-awaited return to the director’s chair for another Marvel project, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, releasing to theaters May 6.
