Longtime producer Avi Arad wants Sam Raimi to return to Spider-Man with an animated movie after the success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Before the days of shared comic book movie universes, Raimi helped reestablish superhero movies as lucrative projects in Hollywood, as his initial installment had the first $100 million-plus opening weekend ever. He directed a trilogy of Spider-Man films starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker in total, which came to an unplanned end with Spider-Man 3 in 2007.

Raimi originally had plans for Spider-Man 4, but ultimately had to leave the project due to how quickly Sony wanted it done. The studio wound up rebooting the franchise with director Marc Webb and star Andrew Garfield in 2012, but then ended that franchise after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014. Sony then agreed to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Tom Holland playing the part. The partnership with Marvel Studios has been incredibly successful, but Sony also found hits of their own with Venom's surprise box office run and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse becoming an Oscar-winning feature.

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Throughout all of these decisions, reboots, and recastings, producer Arad has been involved. He was even the one who pushed Raimi to include Venom in Spider-Man 3, even though the director didn't want to use him. After all this time and the newfound success Arad and Sony have with these characters, Arad wants to get Raimi back. He revealed this during an interview with Deadline, where he said, "I would love to see what kind of animated Spider-Man movie we’d get from Sam Raimi so if he sees this, ‘Call me Sam!'"

Miles Morales in Spider-Verse and Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man

While this may be a long shot at this point, as Raimi has moved on from the superhero world and is next directing Kingkiller Chronicles, this is an exciting possibility to consider. Raimi has never directed an animated movie before, so it would be a chance for him to spread his wings as a creator. That said, the possibilities of animation and the multi-verse introduced in Spider-Verse opens up the door for Raimi to have the ability to actually do the Spider-Man 4 he always envisioned.

There's been several details on Spider-Man 4 that have surfaced over the years, including who Raimi may have cast for certain roles. Vulture and Mysterio appeared to be part of the story, with rumors pointing to John Malkovich being eyed for the role of Vulture. Raimi also confirmed in the past that Anne Hathaway auditioned for Felicia Hardy aka Black Cat, with concept art teasing the romantic relationship between her and Peter. Since the movie never happened, Spider-Man 4 is a major what-if story that many fans would like to see, and since it would just require voice work from the cast, it's feasible that an animated Spider-Man 4 set within the Spider-Verse world could happen. The chances of this materializing may be slim, as Raimi could decide to do a different story altogether if he did want to return, but hopefully Raimi does give Arad a call and something can happen.

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Source: Deadline