Raimi's Original Spider-Man 4 Plan Can't Work After Homecoming

Sam Raimi’s original plan for Spider-Man 4 can’t work following the MCU’s first Spider-Man solo outing, Spider-Man: Homecoming. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films are in large part responsible for the modern superhero blockbuster that dominates the film industry to this day. After his first two critically-acclaimed outings, Raimi’s third film was met with a mixed critical reception. While by no means a bad film, Spider-Man 3 didn’t quite win the hearts of viewers the way that its predecessors did, and a fourth film was never made. The hypothetical movie’s plans, however, would have featured a classic Spider-Man villain who would go to be Homecoming’s antagonist.

Sam Raimi, hoping to make a fourth film that matched the quality of his first two outings, found himself repeatedly unsatisfied with the quality of the film’s scripts. Raimi eventually left the film’s production, not believing he could make a high-quality film within the studio’s deadline. This led Sony to reboot the Spider-Man films with 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man, featuring Andrew Garfield as a new iteration of Spider-Man. The canceled Spider-Man 4 would have featured John Malkovich as Adrian Toomes, a.k.a. The Vulture.

After The Amazing Spider-Man film series ended, the MCU’s Spider-Man film series began with 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, which featured Michael Keaton as The Vulture in a widely-praised performance. Tobey Maguire’s iteration of Spider-Man from the Sam Raimi films made his triumphant return to the big screen in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, leading to many fans demanding that Spider-Man 4 be made. Assuming that it’d follow the originally proposed scripts, the film would work for several reasons, the biggest being that Keaton’s version of The Vulture was simply too memorable to be topped.

Spider-Man 4Vulture Concept Battle Video released by Sam Raimi

The Michael Keaton version of The Vulture was simultaneously likable, naturalistic, and incredibly menacing. While not the brilliant geriatric engineer from the comics, the MCU’s Adrian Toomes was closely tied to the rest of the franchise, arming himself and his subordinates with scavenged technology left behind by The Avengers and their battles with aliens and other futuristically-equipped entities. The Vulture was also connected to Peter Parker, as the father of his then-crush, Liz Toomes. While superhero fans are well-accustomed to new versions of the same characters, Michael Keaton left a lasting impression with his iteration of The Vulture, who is set to somehow appear in Sony’s Spider-Man universe via Morbius.

Additionally, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man continuity goes beyond its three classic films. Each film featured a video game tie-in that added additional characters and story arcs for Peter Parker. A comic-accurate version of The Vulture is already part of the Raimi continuity thanks to the games, though Spider-Man 4 would have presumably rendered him non-canonical, had it been made according to its early scripts. The tie-in material doesn’t provide a significant obstacle to new Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, but by not making a Spider-Man 4 with its proposed version of The Vulture, the continuity remains untarnished.

Given that Tobey Maguire and his version of Spider-Man are over a decade older in No Way Home than they were in Spider-Man 3, a hypothetical fourth film shouldn’t revive its original proposed story beats, especially considering Sam Raimi’s dissatisfaction with the scripts. At Tobey Maguire’s request, details on Spider-Man’s escapades following Spider-Man 3 are vague, with the only detail being that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are still in a relationship, having worked through their difficulties shown in the original three films. With this in mind, a better idea for a fourth Raimi Spider-Man film would be to begin adapting content from Marvel’s MC2 comic continuity, keeping Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson as the protagonists, but beginning to set up Mayday Parker as Peter’s successor. By using new story beats and a different villain, Spider-Man 4 would avoid being negatively compared to Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Next: No Way Home Ignored The Hidden Marvel Characters In Maguire's Universe