It looks like the one major comic book film franchise of the last decade has started to fall apart.

The past couple weeks have seen news of the disagreements between the Spider-Man franchise’s only director (Sam Raimi) and it’s studio (Sony Pictures) ranging from script ideas to who should be the main villain of the fourth installment in the series. Raimi’s been very insistent in using the classic Spider-Man villains such as Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and, in the third film, Sandman. The studio wants the newer villains such as Venom and Carnage (two villains I thought were given too much press by comic book fans of the younger generation).

With the fourth film’s start date for filming having been delayed the targeted release date for the film on May 2011 wouldn’t be met. Visual-effects teams and houses have been told not to start work. It is these production teams who need the most time to do their work and the fact that they’ve been told not to even start pre-prod work means the delay will most likely affect not just the targeted date of 2011, but probably it’s new release date of 2012 (FX quality could suffer if rushed for the latter which Sony may just take a chance on).

All these delays and postponements have just cost the franchise it’s two most visible frontmen. Director Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire (the only actor to play Peter Parker in all three films) are not out of the fourth film. Sony looks to reboot the franchise with a new director and a new lead actor as they move forward to try and make a 2012 release.

Will taking in a new director and a new lead mean a fourth film in the franchise that will have less of a budget to work with (the three films averaged between 150-250 million budget per)? Is Sony trying to rush this fourth film and giving up on the franchise’s only director and lead actor to try and keep their licensing rights to the franchise? Will Marvel (now a subsidiary of Disney Corp.) play hardball with Sony and the other studios which hold the licensing rights to Marvel characters?

While the third Spider-Man film wasn’t on the same level in terms of quality as the first two it still made a ton of money. One would think that a studio such as Sony would listen to the director who actually made the franchise become a juggernaut when summertime comes around. As a company Sony has made many missteps in their consumer and entertainment divisions. The struggle between studio and filmmaker may just have started the death-knell to the franchise which ushered in the Golden Age of comic book-based films.

Only time will tell, but unless Sony is able to get a director who can bring in the sort of inventive and imaginative vision to the franchise and a lead actor who can easily step into Maguire’s shoes and make audiences forget about the change, then I see this franchise heading down a fast slope into B-movie territory. A development which would further cement Marvel’s desire to take back all it’s properties under it’s fold.

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3iddf4077045b31afc6088f148eaee3ac2