Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 fell apart primarily due to creative differences and was ultimately replaced by 2012 reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. The plan had been for John Malkovich to play The Vulture, with Anne Hathaway set to star as Black Cat and Angelina Jolie eyed for Toomes' daughter, Vulturess.
Not much more than that has been revealed over the years, but a couple of years ago, storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson shed some light on original plans for Spider-Man 4.
He explained that The Vulture was a government contractor who did all manner of dirty jobs on their behalf, revealing he got his name because "he didn't leave anything but bones behind" after taking on those jobs.
To drive home what a formidable threat Toomes was, it's said we'd have seen him beat Spider-Man to the point of near death, making him fiercer than both the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. Ultimately, Peter would have inadvertently sent The Vulture hurtling to his death, leading to the villain's daughter taking up the mantle.
YouTuber YBAM has taken a crack at animating some of Spider-Man 4's storyboards, revealing what at least one of the clashes between Spidey and The Vulture would have looked like. While The Vulture seen here has a lot in common with the MCU's version, it's worth noting Raimi planned to put Malkovich in a comic-accurate suit.
Talking in 2022 to promote Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the filmmaker revealed he'd hoped to eventually bring Kraven the Hunter to the screen.
"I missed Kraven the Hunter. We were going to work that character into the next Spider-Man," Raimi revealed. "I always wanted to see Kraven fight Spider-Man on the big screen. I thought that would be really unique."
"He’s the ultimate hunter, and Spider-Man is like the most agile trickster of the skies. And I wanted to see Peter continue forward as a human being."
Around the same time, he also explained what went wrong with Spider-Man 4. "We had a script years ago and we were actively working in pre-production. It became a thing where there was a deadline and I didn't want to make something that was less than great."
"I thought I had compromised a bit on Spider-Man 3 and I wanted to really pay the audience back on Spider-Man 4 and make the best Spider-Man of all," Raimi continued. "And I couldn't get the script together in that amount of time. So I told Sony, 'I think it's best if you go ahead with your planned alternate Spider-Man storyline, because I don't want to let the audience down.'"
Check out what could have been in the player below.