He didn't stand up for himself by walking away. He chickened out. He could of took reigns and pointed out that if it weren't for him they wouldn't have this successful franchise, but no, he walked away, coincidentally saving the franchise in the process by letting the better reboot script get through.
*sigh*
If only the world worked like that, right? Do you really think a director has the power to walk in and tell the studio that he's making a movie his way and they have to wear it? Would you walk into your big boss' office and say "the way you run the company is crap, shut up and let me take the reigns". You'd be laughed out.
And if you read the article properly, you'll know that Raimi doing that was the reason for the delay, and then the studio reminded him he was a "hired gun" and that he could shut up and use the script or they'd get someone else and THEN he walked.
Yet, now when we have clear proof that Sony wants the best for the franchise? That's still wrong. So what should they have done because giving full control to Raimi didn't seem like it'd have been a good path. He was determined to do the same things with Vulture that he had already done with GG, Ock, and Sandman.
What they should have done is not interferred in the first place. No one is painting Raimi as a saint - but the studio is quite intent on doing what THEY want for the franchise. Raimi HATED the script Vanderbilt wrote, and Sony then commissioned him to write 3 more Spider-man movies. This is what you seem to be avoiding - the project was never Raimi's. We speculate on what ideas could be his, but Raimi hated the script from the start and tried continually to have it be rewritten, only to have Sony overide the rewrites. The bigger issue here is the future of the franchise and so far Sony has shown:
- A lack of respect for the source material.
- A desire to use a ridiculous amount of villains.
- A desire to make the project as cheap as possible by avoiding high calibre actors (eg, Hathaway and Malkovich).
- A desire to take the series back to somewhere it was 8 years ago.
- A desire to emulate Nolan's Batman.
Not to mention the fact that they're using a writer who's original draft was the basis for the apparent crap pile that was Spider-man 4 as the sole writer, under THEIR direction. The past is the past, but the future is a big concern because there are NO apparent positives in the plan to reboot. Raimi's time in the franchise is dead, and no whinging will change that - and maybe it's a good thing it is dead. You just seem to be burying your head in the sand and buying Raimi as a scapegoat to escape the fact that this reboot may not be the best thing for the Spider-man franchise and that all signs of Sony's behaviour point to it being a disaster.
IF Sony had announced today that they were going to reboot the franchise and were looking for a new director to take over the project over the coming months and develop it - THAT would be potentially good news. What Sony have said today is that they've developed a script on their own and will find a director and star in a matter of
weeks. That's not a good thing.