With the mess that is the delay and behind-the-scenes dispute over villains between Sony and director Sam Raimi, it looks like we just may have a positive piece of news pushing the film in the right direction from a development standpoint. That is, the direction that the film may be made on time...

While appearing on the Italian sports show Quelli Che il Calcio, Malkovich spoke about his involvement and confirmed that he is set to play the villain known as the Vulture in Spider-Man 4.

There's no word on the other rumor about Anne Hathaway playing Vulturess and I think most of us hope it stays that way.

Thanks to the folks at BadTaste.it for sharing the news and info with us, we have a little summary of what was said.

"When conductor Simona Ventura asked him about his role of Vulture in the movie, he not only didn't deny his involvement, but confirmed that he's waiting for the final script to be sent to him, and that the movie has been delayed. He also hopes that shooting will begin as soon as possible."

We had already seen confirmation that there are production delays for Spider-Man 4 thanks to a scoop from IESB, later confirmed by THR. This was further emphasized when Marvel moved up the release date of next summer''s Thor to the same weekend Spider-Man 4 currently sits. Obviously, Marvel and Sony won't have both big budget super heroes competing for the opening weekend of summer 2011 so we can expected Spider-M4n to be pushed.

We knew from before that Raimi wants Vulture as the feature villain but Sony seemingly wants Black Cat or another villain who's currently hot in the Spidey books right now. With what Malkovich is saying here, we know he'd definitely been in talks to play the part and he likely will, pending the final script treatment (if Sony and Raimi can agree on it).

Here's a fan-made Spider-Man 4 poster which now seems more appropriate:

Spider-Man 4 fanmade poster Vulture

What do you think of John Malkovich playing Vulture in Spider-Man 4 and what other villain(s) would you like to see?

Trivia: John Malkovich was offered the role of the Green Goblin in the first Spider-Man but turned it down, allowing Willem Dafoe to take the spot. At least he gets to play another green dude, right?

Stay tuned for more news and confirmations as it comes in at Screen Rant!

Source: BadTaste.it

Fan-made poster from HeyUGuys