For years, rumours have persisted that Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 would have seen Felicia Hardy, a.k.a. Black Cat, reimagined as The Vulture's daughter. Played by Anne Hathaway, The Vulturess was going take aim at the web-slinger, though this departure from the comics has frequently been singled out as a reason to not mourn for the scrapped movie too much.
Well, it appears we were mistaken because a new book, With Great Power, sheds some light on Raimi's real plans. Storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson reveals that Eternals star Angelina Jolie was "attached to this pivotal role for a short amount of time" as Adrian Toomes' daughter.
As well as suiting up as Vulturess, the unnamed character was set to be "an accomplished executive representing a venture capital firm that was trying to buy the Daily Bugle." What led to this businesswoman becoming a supervillain? The death of her dear old dad!
"They were going to have a big brawl-for-it-all, where Vulture almost kills Spider-Man," Henderson explains. "And then Spider-Man at the last minute - he’s really wounded, he’s bleeding really badly, he’s in real trouble - Peter finally, almost as a reaction, forces The Vulture off."
"When he does, it snaps some of the stuff from the wings, so he ends up just tumbling into the ether, off the top of the Citicorp building. That’s what does him in."
Spidey inadvertently killing the villain is unlikely to have sat too well with some fans, though it's interesting to think that might have led to the emergence of a new baddie in The Vulture's daughter! The creation of a new character like this when there are so many to choose from in the comics may have surely been a big talking point, but it sounds like a compelling enough arc.
It's also noted that Hathaway was indeed eyed to play Black Cat, meaning Peter Parker would have more than likely found a new love interest in the wake of Mary Jane Watson's departure.
What do you guys think about these latest Spider-Man 4 story details?