“I loved what she was doing with the auditions for ‘Spider-Man 4’,” Raimi told the outlet. “…I didn’t get to see ‘Batman’ yet, because I’ve been working nonstop on ‘Oz’, but I hear she’s great in it.”
The project, which was planned to have also featured John Malkovich as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture, would have continued the world of Raimi’s original Spider-Man trilogy. Uncomfortable making the 2011 deadline that Sony Pictures had in mind, Raimi departed the project amicably and the reigns were passed to Marc Webb for the 2012 reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man.
It wasn’t long after departing Spider-Man 4 that Raimi became attached to direct Warcraft. In the same article, he explains what happened that made him move on from that project.
“First, they asked me if I wanted to make it, and I said, ‘Yes, I love World of Warcraft, and I think it would make a great picture.'” Raimi says. “So I read a screenplay they had that was written by the guys at Blizzard, and it didn’t quite work for me. I told them I wanted to make my own original story with Robert, so we pitched it to Legendary and they accepted it, and then we pitched it to Blizzard, and they had reservations, but they accepted it. Then Robert wrote the screenplay, and only once he was done did we realize that Blizzard had veto power, and we didn’t know that. And they had never quite approved the original story we pitched them. Those reservations were their way of saying, ‘We don’t approve this story, and we want to go a different way,’ so after we had spent nine months working on this thing, we basically had to start over.”
A Warcraft feature film is still on the way, now with Duncan Jones attached the helm.
“I loved his movie ‘Moon’,” Raimi adds, “and I think he’s a strikingly talented director. I bet that if anyone can do a great job with it, it’s him.”
Raimi’s own latest, Oz The Great and Powerful, arrives in theaters this Friday, March 8.
(Photo Credit: Adriana M. Barraza / WENN.com)