After committing several years of his life to the series and seeing his third effort greeted with less than enormous enthusiasm, it was widely thought that Sam Raimi would probably only come back to the Spider-man series in a producing capacity, rather than directing. But speaking to Comingsoon.com Raimi gave every indication that he's open, and actually quite eager, to direct a fourth.
"James Vanderbilt is writing the script and I'm excited to read it. I think it's going to be done in a few months," Raimi said. "I'm hoping it's as great as our discussions were about it and I'm hoping it feels right for me because I love Spider-Man. I'm hoping I'm well rested enough to embrace it and I'm hoping Sony wants me to do it. If all of those things come together, I would love to do it."
He also stated that were he to return he'd have no intention of re-casting the roles. For the rest, head here.
In relate news, IESB spoke to J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson in the series) who says he'd be up for further films and said he'd spoken to Tobey Maguire about the possibility of coming back for more.
"There was talk of doing four and five concurrently and I don’t know if they’re still considering that or not," he said, "I spoke to Tobey in, I guess it was February…sort of awards season time and, y’know, he’s certainly amenable to doing some more and hopefully we’ll be able to get everybody back and make another good one."
There's more of that interview here. That, of course, doesn't count as confirmation of anything, but all this is suggesting that a fourth film in the series with all the original cast members is still a definite possibility. Does that have you excited or would you rather leave it at three?