Whispers about director Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man-4 that never was have been doing the rounds for over a decade. Now, thanks to a new book, more details have emerged about Raimi’s unmade sequel – including who would have played the villain.
According to the book With Great Power: How Spider-Man Conquered Hollywood During The Golden Age of Blockbusters by CinemaBlend managing editor Sean O’Connell, John Malkovich was the actor Sam Raimi wanted to don the wings of Vulture.
The villain – in this iteration, a "private contractor" for the government who didn’t leave "anything but bones behind", hence the nickname – would have fought to the death with Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man in the first half of the movie. A concept video of that battle has previously been released – which shows Maguire’s webhead being stabbed in a particularly brutal battle.
After Vulture’s death, it was mooted that the villain’s daughter (potentially played by Angelina Jolie, according to rumors) would have been the focus of the rest of Spider-Man 4. While that’s unconfirmed, storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson confirmed plans for Spidey to defeat a whole host of villains.
"We were going to open the movie with this montage of all the villains we knew that Sam would never be able to use in Spider-Man movies," Henderson said. "So we were going to try to do The Shocker, Mysterio, The Stilt Man, and that kind of stuff."
True to form, Raimi would also have cast Bruce Campbell in a cameo – as Mysterio. Eat your heart out, Pizza Poppa.
While Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 will likely never see the light of day, Tobey Maguire’s webslinger returned in the billion-dollar hit Spider-Man: No Way Home alongside Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man and Andrew Garfield’s ‘Peter 3.’
Relive some of Spidey's best adventures with our ranking of the best Spider-Man movies.
