Web of Lies: Spider-man 4...no more?

What's funny about Twitter is that it often becomes the urinary trough for peeing contests between competing movie rumor sites. Over the last few weeks, IESB (one of the legends in "the game"...and by "the game," I mean talking about movies, which is far less tough than anything else that has ever been referred to as "the game") reported that Spider-man 4 was in trouble...big trouble...the kind of trouble you may not recover from. Then along came MTV's Splash Page (which is kind of douchey in that they mostly just suckle from the teat of Twilight and bilk the comic book fanboys by tossing out wild rumors and aspersions) to say that this was hogwash. The battle lines were drawn. In the end, the winner was...IESB, as various news outlets began reprinting an email from inside one of the visual effects groups noting that production was cancelled "because Sam Raimi hates the story." Good for you, Sammy! The supposed bone of contention is the villain. Raimi apparently wants John Malkovich and ONLY John Malkovich (likely to play The Vulture) and the studio wants (or wanted, depending on the reports) Anne Hathaway to play The Vulturess (a character invented for the movie). Good news! We have an excuse to post a picture of Anne Hathaway.

The obvious problem is that (A) two villains is not a good idea and (B) the Vulturess is stupid. Why not include The Black Cat as was rumored...or punt the whole thing. The reason this whole "not having a script thing" is important is because the principle players are locked into contracts and are quite busy. What I'm saying is this: If this drags on, and rewriting or creating an entirely new script is not a quick process, Raimi may lose his players (please lose Kirsten Dunst, please lose Kirsten Dunst). Were I a betting man, I'd say...this film isn't going to happen as it was conceived. I'm saying no Raimi, no Maguire, no Dunst. I'm saying back to the drawing board. This reminds me of the original quest to bring Spidey to the big screen, only back then we were talking about director James Cameron and star Leonardo DiCaprio, back when Kirsten Dunst was only a whiny, misshapen pup. I want a new Spidey movie. Bad. But I don't want a new bad Spidey movie. I hope Raimi holds out until it's right or walks away.

Web of Lies: Good news/bad news

Once more we return to the sticky wicket that is the Spider-man 4 casting process. As you may recall, we have moved through a veritable who's who of hotties in a quest to find a new female figure in the new Spidey outing. When the rumors began flying like bagels in a bagel fight (if you don't know about a bagel fights...you're lucky...damn lucky), we created Web of Lies to document the continued falsehoods and excuses to post hot pictures of lovely actresses. Well, here we are again, and we get to post more awesome images:

Wow, there may be nothing worse than seeing John Malkovich when you think you're about to see something beautiful. Seriously, if he and James Carville were to have a freaky-face contest, humanity would be destroyed. Now, the scuttlebutt right now is one that should cause people like me, a dude with more Spider-man comics than he has DNA strands, into a frenzy. See, according to Movieline, Malkovich will play The Vulture. That much is actually cool, because he is a talented actor and looks the part (see):

It's the second part that will send fans nuts. Apparently, the Vulture will have a daughter named Felicia Hardy who becomes the Vulturess. In the comics, Felicia Hardy is the Black Cat, a skin-tight-suit wearing cat burgler with bad luck powers. Of course, this may be a little too close to Catwoman for some people, and as we all know, after Halle Berry's effort, no one should be close to Catwoman. This irritating news is buffered by the fact that this is the lady playing The Vulturess (who needs a better name, STAT):

Now, allow me a brief aside here. I'm cool with this. I'll tell you the reasons why as briefly as I am able and if you stay, I'll give you another Anne Hathaway picture.

1.) I like it because it mirrors the father/son Green Goblin stuff. Thematic echoing is big for Raimi and it works here.

2.) I like it because the Black Cat, while hot, was a stupid character. She had BAD LUCK powers, for the love of God, and when ISN'T a woman in comics dressed in skin tight leather. If she were any less original of a character, she'd have been "created" by Stephanie Meyers.

3.) I like it because it will provide great mid air visuals, which have been my favorite effects moments in the series.

4.) I like it because it isn't Venom.

5.) I like it because movies are not comic books. Let's face facts, people, everybody flipped shit over the "organic web shooters" in the first film and it was great. Purists don't seem to understand that the biggest issue at hand is whether or not the movie is good. I don't care that Felicia Hardy is going to be the Vulturess, I care that the Vulturess not suck like Topher Grace did.

So, there you go, the latest in our web of lies. Now, as promised, less of me and more Anne Hathaway.

You're welcome.

Spider-man vs the studio

According to Variety, Spider-man's fate rests in the pen of this guy:



His name is James Vanderbilt, and I'm going to try to forgive his unfortunate facial hair, his Axe-body-spray hair cut, and the fact that this looks like a date rapist's mug shot. Oy. The bigger concern than my obvious snap judgment about people's appearances, is that Sony has hired the man to write Spider-man 5 and 6, without knowing if they'll have to reboot because Maguire and Dunst are leaving. Look, this ain't Harry Potter, we know the chances are high that this role will be replaced, but knowing whether you're going to be following a literal extension of a storyline from what has been established or kickin' the do-over button is important. Supposedly, the idea that good-ole "Douchey Magee" up there has will span two movies and will involve a simultaneous two-picture shoot. After the vortex of suck formed around the last movie (I know, I reviewed it positively, but thankfully The Reader only keeps an online archive of like 2 weeks or something, so I can start denying it...thank God they have no faith in the sustained viability of the Internet"), a ton is riding on this next endeavor, which Vanderbilt wrote the first draft of...before playwright David Lindsay-Abaire was brought in to rewrite...before Gary Ross was brought in to rewrite that. So, yeah, apparently Vanderbilt's work was so vital they had to bring on two more writers to poke at it (please don't let the villain in this one be male-pattern baldness, the only enemy Vanderbilt TRULY fears). Raimi supposedly did not care for all of Vandy's ideas, which is really reassuring, considering he is the most talented thinker involved on the series. Now, the good news is that Vanderbilt had a hand in Zodiac, which was good if really, really boring, and he also penned The Losers, based on the comic book, and that will likely see the light of day before Spider-man 5 and 6 get rolling, so there's time to fire Captain Pornstache before it's too late, if needs be. Look, I'm just protective, okay, I really love Spidey and the last outing was so bad that I need to believe again. Plus, the Spidey musical is having funding problems, so I may never get that Bono/The Edge Spider-man music that I need to survive (just typing that was hard through my tears). Please, help me Sergeant Soul-Patch, you're my only hope.

Nerds who live life vicariously through video game to live life vicariously through movie based on video game

I have to tell you, Sam Raimi is a glutton for punishment. I'm not just talking about his repeated willingness to tolerate the presence of Kirsten Dunst (ZING!), I'm talking about his sick desire to work on projects with budgets slightly smaller than the deficit in California. Variety has announced that one-time cult favorite turned total sell-out Raimi (yeah, he totally Yorke-d a Leon...if you don't know what that means, go here) will direct Warcraft, which is based on the video game "World of Warcraft," which is based on the theory that humans don't need physical touch to live. Raimi will have his head so far up geek ass next year that he will be simultaneously "overseeing the development" of Warcraft while actually shooting Spiderman 4 (if life were a sitcom, Raimi would end up getting things mixed up and insert Spidey into a crazy medieval world of wizards and witches, but everything would work out just fine in the end when Danny Tanner has a heart-to-heart). Warner Bros, the studio perhaps best known for their big event movies, realized that the Harry Potter cash cow has been milked so violently that only nickels are dropping from its teats, and sees this new series as a potential big one...despite, you know, not having a set story really. Honestly, I can see where the appeal for the game is, but the movie just sounds so generic that I have no clue how you'd make a unique story out of it. (Who wants to bet there's a roguish anti-hero who just wants to be left alone but really has a heart of gold, some kind of brute who is used as comic relief, and a hot magic chick with a secret...yes, I too have once talked to a 14-year-old nerd). I'm guessing there is evil to be defeated, and that fans will nut themselves everytime one of the people on screen performs some goofy magic spell that they clicked into a computer while in their underpants at home. I think that signing Raimi is as good a move as could be made to make this interesting to those of us who have not been swallowed whole by the "World of Warcraft" craze (although I wonder if all of them are even interested in a movie version), but my excitement level is only a beige on the Color-Coded Anticipation Scale.