By Larry Carroll,splashpage.mtv.com
October 16,2008
Although things weren’t looking too good for awhile, “Spider-Man” has overcome adversities tougher than a Green Goblin-Doc Ock team-up, and now once again has Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi in his corner. But what about Kirsten Dunst?
“Kirsten, I’d love to work with her again,” Raimi explained to us this week, making it sound as if current plans to include Dunst for “Spider-Man 4” and “Spider-Man 5” are still up in the air, despite recent statements that she wants to remain with the franchise. “I hope she’ll be written into it. I couldn’t imagine making one without her, and I think she’s an important part of the movies.”
Nevertheless, Raimi admitted that the very nature of an episodic series requires that characters come and go. “I wish I could work with James Franco again,” said the man who directed the first three hit movies. “But his character died in the last one; same with Uncle Ben. Fortunately, we’ve been able to bring back all the dead characters [like Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn or Cliff Robertson as Ben Parker]. I can’t let them go, in each and every picture; but it gets harder and harder.”
Now things are about to get hard yet again for Raimi, as he’s making plans to continue the cinematic tale of Peter Parker. “I’m really excited about Spider-Man, and I’m hoping to direct it,” he cautioned. “I don’t have a script yet, but production would start probably by March of 2010, I’m guessing. It sounds like a long time away, but we need a script first, and a lot of pre-production has to take place.”
The filmmaking legend also revealed to us that there is a lot of truth behind rumors that he might shoot the next two “Spider-Man” films at the same time. “That had been talked about,” he said, deferring to the head of his studio. “It’s Amy Pascal’s decision. I don’t think it has been decided yet, and she’s the one that’s really going to make that decision; I’m really curious myself.”
By his own admission, “Spider-Man 3” was an exhaustive film to shoot, but Raimi is confident he can handle the double duty. “It would be a real endurance test, probably only Peter Jackson knows how hard something like that would be,” he marveled, hinting that “4” and “5” would be very closely linked in storyline. “If Tobey and me, and all the producers, like the story for two pictures and Amy wanted to do it, then we would do it. It just hasn’t been written yet.”
Finally, Raimi offered comment on the wishes of fans (and yours truly) to finally let Dylan Baker’s storyline come to fruition. “He’s a great actor, and I think one day The Lizard’s story will be told,” he teased, referring to Baker’s Curt Connors character. “I don’t know if it will be this one or not. I just don’t know. I’m definitely hoping to work with Dylan in the picture. I just don’t know who the villain is yet.”
