Sam Raimi directing Spider-Man 4? Now this is a rumor we can get behind

There's a tiny rumour going around right now that has gotten us very excited in ShortList Towers: that Sam Raimi is in talks to direct Spider-Man 4.

It's based on an interview with Thomas Hayden Church, in Comicbook.com, who played Sandman in Spider-Man 3 and No Way Home, who reckons he's heard talk of his old director pal gearing up for the fourth Spider-Man movie.

"There's always been some kind of…I've heard rumors…that Sam Raimi was going to do another [Spider-Man movie] with Tobey [Maguire] and if that happens, I would probably campaign to maybe at least do a cameo," said Church.

Yes, we have to take this with a pinch of salt but a Raimi/Tobey Maguire re-team would certainly be a welcomed one, even if Maguire is just an extended cameo in the movie, much like what he was in No Way Home.

Spider-Sam

Raimi was always primed to make a fourth Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire, rounding off his stint of Spider-Man movies which began back in 2001.

There was talk that he was looking to bring John Malkovich into the franchise as Vulture. For a variety of reasons this didn't happen, instead Sony rebooted the franchise with Marc Webb at the helm in 2012. And rebooted again, with the help of Marvel, in 2017 (and we finally got a Vulture appearance, thanks to Michael Keaton).

Skip to 2023 and we have had three Tom Holland films, all with Jon Watts directing. Watts has now gone to reboot Fantastic Four, which means that a new director is being lined up for the fourth film in the franchise.

While there's only Church's quote to go by right now, Raimi is firmly back in the Marvel family, thanks to him directing Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness. While filming this around the same time as No Way Home, he must have looked over at what Watts was doing, with his characters, and felt a pang of nostalgia.

The cinemagoing audience certainly responded well, with the film garnering $1.916 billion.

Even if this one isn't in Marvel's roadmap, the studio has lost some of its luster of late and an about-turn such as this would certainly be a welcomed one by many.

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