James Vanderbilt, writer of the Zodiac and Basic screenplays, will replace the original Spider-Man scribe David Koepp in the drafting of the fourth installment of the superhero series. Producers want more character-driven stories, rather than a focus on special effects, according to Reuters/the Hollywood Reporter.

No deals have been made to bring back series director Sam Raimi or stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst.

Plot points are being closely guarded by the studio, though the intent is to scale back the story to include only two villains instead of repeating the "Spider-Man 3" model. The third installment, which grossed $336.5 million domestically this year, saw Spidey battle a busy triumvirate of evildoers in the forms of Venom, Sandman and Goblin. It was widely reckoned as overly cumbersome with one too many plot lines.

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It doesn't exactly make a critic eat his heart out when a movie like Spider-Man 3, despite being panned by them (including our own Rex Reed), breaks all the records in the book.

Biggest opening weekend? Check. Biggest opening, period? Check. Biggest international release? Check.

But let’s add some insult to critical injury, please: Can you guess the two top-grossing theaters on the movie’s opening-day? L.A.’s gigantic ArcLight and … Sony’s Lincoln Square theater. Take that, Alice Tully!  read more »

Director Sam Raimi tried everything in this second superhero sequel—and nothing worked.  read more »

The IMDB gossip page, which usually tells us things we already know, carries a novel piece of information this morning.

James Franco, the James Dean lookalike best known to the public as Peter Parker-friend-turned-foe Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man franchise (but most beloved to us for his turn as Daniel Desario in Freaks and Geeks, of course) is back in college working on his honors thesis in creative writing!

"Part of [the novel's plot] is based on a person I knew when I was younger who got in a lot of trouble and a lot of fights and was arrested a lot and was considered a troubled kid and kicked out of high school," he said. "Then, later, when I graduated high school he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic so I see his behavior as pre-symptoms to getting the help that he needed."