Why the Spider-Man Reboot is Terrible Idea

If you're a comic book fan, then by now you've probably heard the news. After two years of quiet announcements on Spider-Man 4, Sony Pictures announced a few days ago that it had scrapped the project to instead develop a Spider-Man reboot ala Batman Begins, that would retell the origin story with a whole new cast and director. Supposedly, this reboot will take the story in "darker, grittier" direction.

Naturally, while the official story about the departure of Sam Raimi and crew is full of holes and the rumors surrounding it don't really line up, what seems to be the most likely story is that after Raimi's previous creative differences with the producers, he was hoping to have more control over this project and so he developed a screenplay featuring lesser-known villains the Vulture and Black Cat, the former to be played by John Malkovich. However, Sony began to interfere again, pushing such changes as turning the Black Cat into an all new-villain named "The Vulturess," in order to avoid Catwoman comparisons. Sure enough, Raimi walked. Behind the scenes, it turned out that Sony had been concurrently developing this reboot project with writer James Vanderbilt, which they then set into motion.

Now, personally, I loved all three of the previous movies, so after closely following the production of Spider-Man 4 this news is rather depressing, made only worse by imagining how interesting it would have been to see John Malkovich as the Vulture, who has always been an underrated villain. However, to evaluate this news honestly, personal opinion on Raimi's films must be taken out of the equation. Why is it, then, that this is such a bad idea?

Well, from a purely financial standpoint-the first three Spider-Man movies were huge successes, all of them among the top 30 highest grossing movies of all time. While Spider-Man 3 suffered a bit critically, it's pretty clear that the approach that these movies took to the character was widely approved of, with millions of viewers becoming attached and involved in Peter Parker's personal web. By distancing this movie from the previous ones, it will automatically create a rift in the audience.

Besides that, though, logically speaking, this is simply too soon. Spider-Man 3 came out only three years ago and is still fresh in people's minds. Batman had to wait nearly a decade before getting rebooted. Superman still hasn't had his origin redone since the 1970's. The point is this-It's been only a couple years since Spider-Man 3 and even more importantly, we already saw Spider-Man's origin just eight years ago. Who actually wants to see the whole thing all over again? Audiences know the story by heart now and eight years is too short a time to make what would effectively come across as a remake. To bring up Batman again, what made Batman Begins work so well wasn't just the amount of time that elapsed since the previous film but also that Batman's origins had never truly been displayed before on the big screen, so it was something new.

The precedent that this sets up is also dangerous. Reboots have been getting increasingly popular in Hollywood these last few years, with movies like Casino Royale and Friday the 13th. However, a reboot this soon into the game, on such a highly successful franchise, makes it clear that nothing is safe. As a result, it also makes it difficult to get emotionally attached to the storylines; what's the point of caring about Peter Parker's fate in this movie if it's just going to be reset in five years? The description of the movie being a "darkier and grittier approach," is also cause for concern because Spider-Man, as a character, is not one who's especially dark. In fact, if there's anything Raimi's movies missed out on, it was that they should've actually had more humor stemming from the character of Spidey himself and his barrage of constant jokes at the expense of his enemies.

It's hard to say what the future holds but at this present moment, things aren't looking too bright for Spidey.