Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 was scrapped during pre-production and ultimately replaced by the 2012 reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. The plan had been for John Malkovich to play The Vulture, with Anne Hathaway eyed for Black Cat and Angelina Jolie set to portray Adrian Toomes' daughter before suiting up as "Vulturess."
Following Tobey Maguire's return as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home, fans remain optimistic that Raimi - who helmed Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness for Marvel Studios - could one day be allowed to make the movie.
Even if that happens, the next Spider-Man 4 won't be exactly like the one we were supposed to get in 2011. Talking to Josh Horowitz, Hathaway confirmed she'd signed up to play Black Cat in the late 2000s and shed new light on how far into that process she got before Sony pulled the plug.
"Uh, I did not get into costume and did not read a script past the audition slides," the actress confirms. "I got the part and, yeah, it just...I think that's probably more the producers' story to tell than mine should they ever decide to tell it."
"The Spider-Man Universe has gone on to be so enormous and so thrilling," Hathaway continued. "It's just reinventing itself and all of those things so I wouldn't want to make more of it than is necessary."
In Spider-Man 4, Toomes was going to be portrayed as a government contractor who did all manner of dirty jobs on their behalf. The villain was going to be dubbed "Vulture" because he'd become known for not leaving anything but bones behind and later died during a clash with the wall-crawler.
Blaming the web-slinger for her father's demise, Toomes' daughter was going to follow in Adrian's footsteps by becoming the aforementioned Vulturess. As for Black Cat, we've never really heard much about the role she'd have played in the story.
Last year, Spider-Man 4 storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson said, "We were going to open the movie with this montage of all the villains we knew that Sam would never be able to use in Spider-Man movies. Because Peter, now that MJ has gone, he has finally made peace, and he loves being Spider-Man. He's actually enjoying it. So we were going to try to do The Shocker, Mysterio, Stilt-Man, and that kind of stuff."
Back to Hathaway, and she'd get to play a feline-themed anti-hero in 2012's The Dark Knight Rises as Catwoman. You can check out the full interview with the actress in the player below.