dnno1
Avenger
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- Mar 5, 2005
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That was NOT the reason why Sony rebooted the Spider-Man franchise. The producers wouldn't give Raimi creative freedom (which he earned since those three films made a pretty penny for Sony and Marvel Entertainment), and Raimi decided to leave to avoid a repeat of Spider-Man 3.
I'm sick of people acting like "well, Raimi was getting too expensive and SM-3 was awful, that's why they rebooted". I guarantee you guys that if the producers (aka Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin) had let Raimi have creative control for Spider-Man 4 -- he would've likely deferred his usual big upfront payment in order to make the film he wanted. There would be no Amazing Spider-Man, we would've had two more Raimi Spider-man movies.
I know what Nikki Finke an Co. have said about the project, but the truth of the matter is that Columbia Pictures and Sony opted to go with the reboot and a cheaper budget. That tells me it was more about money than anything else. Columbia knew that they had a mandate not to give away more than 25% of the gross and their investors wanted a payoff. On a cheaper budget your payoff could be greater assuming you make the same gross on the film. Case in point, If "Spider-Man 4" had been made on a $400 million budget with a similar return as "Spider-Man 3" (about $890 million worldwide) Columbia's profit before taking out print and advertising would have been about $267 million. That compares to "The Amazing Spider-Man", which grossed $752 million world wide on a $230 million budget and brought them $334 million before print and advertising. That was the risk they faced. If they were that confident in Rami's sequel, they would have waited the extra time and gone with his project (in any case the next Spider-Man film was delayed), but they didn't. Creative reasons was just an excuse.