The will he won’t he over whether or not Sam Raimi will direct Spider-Man 4 continues, and probably won’t stop until after Sony has a finished script. The latest on Raimi’s involvement comes from Sam himself, talking to CBR. He tells them, “I think that’s going to be up to Sony Pictures, and I think that it’s too early for them to say, actually.” Which makes it sound like he’s willing to do it, but perhaps Sony doesn’t want him.

Except that’s not necessarily the case. He goes on to indicate he’s holding out to see what sort of script they come up with, and even if he’s not directing, he already seems to be involved in the process of making Spider-Man 4 happen. He goes on to say, “as soon as the writers strike’s over… I’m going to begin working with a writer on the screenplay.” When asked whether Spidey 4’s story will fit in with the other three he says, “we’re hiring a writer to come up with his own take. Sony was willing to go either way, we’ll just have to wait and see what the writer comes up with.”

In other words, getting Raimi to say anything concrete about Spider-Man 4 is almost impossible. What’s kind of frightening is that he doesn’t seem to be opposed to trashing the franchise and doing the ever-so fashionable reboot with it. In fact, he seems to think it’s a possibility. Raimi continues, “I mean, there’s been so many different versions, it doesn’t have to follow the movies that we’ve made. I’d very much like to see Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, so I have a personal interest in that, but certainly anything’s possible. Spider-Man’s such a big character in the comic books that he could endure a lot of different interpretations. You could start over or you could start with a different aspect of the story than I’ve focused on in the pictures I’ve made, we’ll just have to wait and see what the writer comes up with.”

Sony would have to be pretty stupid to completely reboot one of the most successful movie franchises of all time, just because Spider-Man 3 wasn’t quite as genius as the first two. Come on, they aren’t that dumb… are they?

Meanwhile, Raimi continues to sound more and more depressed by all things Spider-Man. The guy really sounds like he’s lost his passion for it. Maybe it was Sony’s interference in Spider-Man 3, forcing him to include Venom when all he really wanted to do was Sandman. Or maybe he’s simply done everything he can do with the character. But if the guy can’t work up a little more zest for the project than the “what will be will be” attitude evidenced in some of the quotes above, I’m starting to think that maybe Spider-Man is better off without him.