Director Sam Raimi launched a new era of superhero films when he kicked off his web-crawler franchise with Spider-Man (2002). His trilogy blew fans away, and even though the character and story have been rebooted several times since then, these movies are still favorites of the fans who loved them. But it turns out we could have had at least one more story set in this exact universe, had it not been for the studio wanting to head in a different direction.
One person who was particularly bummed about this decision was actor Dylan Baker, who played Dr. Curt Connors in films 2 and 3. He was being set up to fully transform into the villain Lizard in the fourth film, and he explained his feelings in a recent interview with CB:
“I have to say, when Sam Raimi called me up and said that he was not going to be carried on to direct Spider-Man 4 [I was disappointed]. He started to tell me about the script he had written and was ready to do and ready to shoot, but it was not going to be able to be done at the time they wanted it to be done.”
Baker says the film would have been very Lizard-adjacent, allowing the iconic Spidey villain to explore the world the filmmaker had set up through three movies.
“It was just letting the Lizard come out and see the world and it just killed me. I would have loved to have done that. Luckily, Rhys Ifans was fantastic and I got to go, ‘Very well done,’ while wishing I could have done it.”
It’s been a long-standing wish of many to see Raimi finally get to film Spider-Man 4 after all these years. The movement was reignited after Raimi joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe to film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness while Tobey Maguire reappeared as Peter Parker in the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Actor Thomas Haden Church, who has played Flint Marco aka Sandman in both Raimi’s Spider-Man universe as well as the MCU’s Spider-Man: No Way Home is insistent that Raimi will eventually get to make the movie. He previously told CB:
“But, you know, I think Sam is gonna do another Spider-Man with Tobey [Maguire], and that’s the one that … They had an option for me to do Spider-Man 4 when there was going to be a Spider-Man 4. They had an option on me to come back. So if it happens, that would be fantastic. I’m getting a little old.”
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is now streaming on Peacock. Baker next appears in Laroy, Texas, which releases in theaters and On Demand April 12.
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