It’s a pretty sure thing that after Spider-Man 3 the franchise is going to move on without either Sam Raimi or Tobey Maguire. The perfect guy to replace Tobey as Peter Parker is Topher Grace, unfortunately Topher is already in Spidey 3 as Venom. So he’s out. If you’re a Spidey fan, then you have to agree that the next best option is Jake Gyllenhaal. Unfortunately according to our friends at Filmstalker he too may soon be off the table.

According to a story in the New York Daily News, Jake is being courted to play Captain Marvel in the upcoming adaptation of the lame comic Shazam!. The film is currently in the early scripting stages with John August newly hired to start writing it, so it may seem a bit early to start talking casting already. But apparently, New Line is already after Jake precisely because they’re afraid Sony will snatch him up to be the new Spidey. They want to lock him into their film before that can happen, thus giving us Jake Gyllenhaal in another crappy comic adaptation instead of Jake Gyllenhaal in the best superhero franchise ever willed into existence.

New Line seems to have a lot more confidence in the whole Captain Marvel thing than I do, because they’re willing to spend $200 million to make it happen. Don’t be surprised if a big chunk of that $200 mil ends up going to Gyllenhaal. He’s no fool, the only reason to do it instead of Spidey would be a substantially bigger paycheck. Whatever happens, it seems increasingly likely that we’ll soon see Jake in tights of some type. He just has to pick a chest logo.