The Amazing Spider-Man faced its fair share of criticism even before it hit cinemas, mainly because of the decision to reboot it so soon after Spider-Man 3 seemed too quick (although it was still a five year gap). In a recent interview, producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach discussed the process of scrapping the originally planned Spider-Man 4 and pursuing The Amazing Spider-Man.
Talking to Collider, Arad said that, after Spider-Man 3,"we all wanted to stay together and do one more, and what was happening, the one more was not a natural version of where we want to go, especially coming from Sam [Raimi]. Sam is not only the most honourable, terrific man but he’s very honest, honest with himself first, and for us as producers, I mean you’re literally putting it on the table, it also represents, if you don’t have your conviction you have to put your money where your mouth is. But we didn’t have a natural story, and this is Spider-Man, this is the coup de gras, you cannot break this thing ever. And it was a mutual decision, with Sam and Tobey and us, we had this story."
Tolmach added that "About half way through it, Sam feeling, trying to find his way, and it wasn’t clear, the way it had been in the past when everybody sort of knew... Sam, it’s like on Spider-Man 2, he started storyboarding the train sequence before we had a script, you knew he was going down a road. And we were struggling, and so this idea came to all of us, eventually we’re all going to be living here, let’s be smart and get in front of it. So James (Vanderbilt) did a draft of that script for us. It wasn’t, I don’t know when things were announced, but it wasn’t until we all collectively decided, 'That one is over, let's really lean into this thing, and talk about a filmmaker, and talk about how we’re going to do it.' And the most daunting thing of all, 'Who’s Peter Parker?' And how do you do that? And so that conversation happened right after we disassembled the other one."
It sounds like, basically, Sam Raimi and his team had told their stories, then. It'd still be interesting to hear just what shape Spider-Man 4 was in before it was officially abandoned, though...
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