Spider-Man 4's Release Date: May 6, 2011

I probably should be posting something about the newest of the comic book apocalypses, that big shake-up going on at Time-Warner and its creation of DC Entertainment. Good? Bad? Indifferent? Will you miss Paul Levitz? That's all super-insider stuff and if anything, this blog models itself after the sterling work of The Onion's Jackie Harvey. So instead of unloading on that heavy-duty topic about which I know nothing (not that absence of knowledge has ever stopped me before), I want to talk about something near and dear to me. Something about which I have strong, personal feelings. As opposed to weak feelings borrowed from someone else, I guess. And in-depth knowledge gleaned through the secret labors of my army of genetically-enhanced super-ninja who can kill with their eyelashes and move through the shadows as silently as one of my father's incredibly aromatic "sofa specials."

And the first example of said arcane knowledge, my reader, is the Spider-Man 4 release date. According to my sources, Sony Pictures plans to release Spider-Man 4 (which I believe has something to do with a spider-like... man... of some kind and follows two or more earlier films in what we might broadly term a "series") on May 5, 2011. Actually, according to another source with better copy-editing, it's May 6.

Which is perfect for me, because I really have no plans for that day. I suppose there's an off chance I might be dead or otherwise incapacitated, in prison for some unspecified charge, stumbling through the creepers and entangling vines of a steamy jungle in search of fabled Aztec gold or simply lost in a trackless desert wasteland on some alien moon. But failing any of that, Sony, I'll be there to see your new Spider-Man picture.

Despite the third one having been a poorly-scripted disaster of the "tell, don't show" variety:

FLINT MARKO

I'm not a bad person. Just had bad luck.

And so on. Lots of expository junk passing for dialogue, and precious little wit in the rest, kind of like this blog. You can go on the Onion A/V Club and find a few commenters on the story about this release date doing the fan-thing and laboriously explaining what would have made Spider-Man 3 a better movie-- stretching it into two films, adding this subplot, dropping that one, resolving the Goblin story in the third, moving Venom into a fourth film, casting someone other than Topher Grace as Venom, hiring any one of the similarly-speculating Onion A/V Club commenters as the producer/director. Oh screw all that. You know what really would have made Spider-Man 3 a better movie? Keeping everything else exactly the same but having a better goddamned screenplay.

Well, now they have a chance to do it right. Two chances, because apparently, they're going to make not only a fourth but even a fifth of these Spider-things with Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst.

And yes, here I will reveal my second bit of movie-biz Spider-Man 4 intelligence. According to the few super-ninja who made it back to my high-tech lair hidden here on the dark side of Earth's moon, rumor has it the list of villain possibilities includes Carnage, Lizard, Vulture, Dan Didio, Octomom and Bruce Campbell as himself in a story where he kicks Spider-Man's ass, shoots a lot of zombies with a shotgun and makes sweet love to Mary Jane Watson by candlelight surrounded by roses while being serenaded by a full-sized swing orchestra. Personally, I'd pay double the ticket price to see that last idea... twice!