 Following the release of Spider @-@ Man 3 , Sony Pictures Entertainment had announced a May 5 , 2011 , release date for Sam Raimi 's next film in the earlier series . By this time , screenwriters James Vanderbilt , David Lindsay @-@ Abaire and Gary Ross had all written rejected versions of a script and Ziskin 's husband Alvin Sargent , who wrote the second and third films , was working on yet another attempt . Raimi wanted John Malkovich to play his next villain . However , on January 11 , 2010 , Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced that rather than continue the earlier saga , they were rebooting the series with a new cast and crew . Industry reports claimed that Raimi had admitted that he could not meet the scheduled release date and retain creative integrity . Avi Arad , Matt Tolmach and Ziskin continued as producers . 
