Sam Raimi’s Ready to Let ‘Spider-Man 4’ Die and Move On

The Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy has left a large mark on the superhero movie genre. After he tackled Doctor Strange for Marvel Studios and Tobey Maguire returned for Spider-Man: No Way Home, fans of the director wondered if it might allow for Spider-Man 4 to be resurrected—he’d planned to make a fourth, but then Sony went and rebooted. He’s even said in recent years that he’d be quite open to doing another installment.

Now, it appears Raimi has fully given up on the idea of bringing back his version of Peter Parker. While doing promo for his latest movie Send Help, he told ScreenRant that he feels his characters “have gone elsewhere. It wouldn’t be right for me to go back and try and resurrect my version of this story.†He hasn’t lost his love for the character or the producers he worked with on that trilogy, but he’s just looking at his time with the character like a comic book run: pretty great, but temporary.

“For a brief time I was handed the torch to carry on after 40 years of Spider-Man comics. And then after my three movies, I handed the torch off to someone else,†he continued. “And I think they’ve got to keep running with the storyline and the audience that is now following the torchbearer.â€

Of course, fans will still likely hope for Spider-Man 4 to happen, maybe even launch a campaign for it. Even with Raimi putting it to bed, there’s a chance Marvel isn’t quite done with Maguire’s Spidey just yet after No Way Home reassured audiences that things worked out for him and MJ in the end. Just because Tom Holland’s the current torchbearer doesn’t mean someone won’t eventually try to hand it off to his predecessor.

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