Fans mourn 'Spider-Man 4', which would have turned 10 on Thursday

Fred Duval/FilmMagic

Before Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield were shooting webs across New York City as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, there was Tobey Maguire.

The actor appeared in three Spider-Man films in the late 90s and early naughts.  A fourth movie was slated for release, but after director Sam Raimi exited the film, the project was canceled.

A decade after the movie's cancellation, Twitter exploded Thursday after stumbling upon an old tweet by Sony, dated March 12, 2009, reminding everyone of that doomed fourth movie.

"Sony Pictures to release Spider-Man 4 on May 6, 2011," the company wrote, sparking tribute tweets from Spidey's fans to honor what would have been the movie's 10th anniversary.

One fan humorously tweeted, "The holy trilogy of Star Wars Day, Cinco De Mayo, and Hypothetical Spider-Man 4 Day."

Adding insult to injury was one of the movie's screenwriters who weighed in on the conversation. James Vanderbilt, who was tapped to pen the scripts of Spider-Man 4, 5 AND 6 per Colliderremarked, "Wow. I worked on this movie for over a year. It was a wonderful experience, only slightly marred by the fact that it never got made."

Maguire last appeared as the beloved webslinger in 2007's Spider-Man 3.

Garfield eventually took over the mantle of Ol' Web-head in 2012, playing the titular character in The Amazing Spider-Man and in 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  

Holland put on the mask two years later, appearing as the new Peter Parker when joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016's Captain America: Civil War in a collaboration between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures.

Friday, May 7, 2021 at 10:00AM by Megan Stone Permalink