Why I think they should have gone with Spider-man 4 instead of Rebooting the series.

I'm with you Intruder, i'm excited for it too! and i'm not even a huge spidey fan. i like him, but he's not even in my top 10 favorite characters.

I'm with Intruder and CorndogBurglar, the reboot was needed and I feel will surpass the original three Spidey movies.

I personally would've liked to see a fourth film just to have things end on the highest note possible, but Truder has a point about the cast getting a bit too old for their roles. But I would've liked to wait for a reboot for another few years instead of doing it 5 years after the last installment.

Fourth film would be very hard to recover from and the cast is old. We need the new, younger generation for this franchise since the characters are based on high school teenagers

i would have prefered spider-man 4 if they didnt have the plans they did but now i definilty want the reboot. it looks likem y dream spider-man movie. theyd better not dissapoint

I'm with the majority of the comments, I'm kind of excited to see how the reboot does. I think Garfield looks perfect for the part, scronny Peter in high school and sticking to source material, I'm giving it a shot.

Raimi stated he wasn't really up for doing SM3. And when he did the studio walked allover it and he just collected a check, sadly I'm not surprised. As for SP4, yeah I agree, the ideas were pretty poor and everyone said they wouldn't return unless Raimi did.
What a lot of people don't know is that Sony, along with other studios/distributors, that own film rights of comic book characters(I think only applies to Marvel because WB owns DC) have to make a movie at the least every five or so years, or the rights revert back to Marvel, and they can re-sell the rights for a insanely more inflated price, so when Raimi was slacking on the script and having creative differences with Sony he dropped off and left, pretty much taking the cast with him. Not to back up Sony, but they pretty much didn't have a choice but to reboot, or they'd lose the rights. So I hope this turns out good, for the millions of Spidey fans.

Oh and IMO, Dennis Leary as George Stacy = awesome haha

Personally, I feel that when a franchise of any sort goes past the third film, the series seems to begin lagging and eventually fizzles out into something that is far away from what the original intentions were. After I watched Spider-Man 3 for the first time, I kind of began noticing that Raimi seemed to want to leave the series there, and after initial disappointment with the film I actually don't mind it now. Of it's many faults, I found that the worst was just how busy it was: Harry's a douche now; Harry's lost his memory; relationship with MJ's failing; Gwen Stacy's on the scene; Spider-Man's a celebrity; Sandman's around; Symbiote's around; Eddie Brock's a douche to Pete; Pete goes emo; Venom's around... the list goes on... However, taking all that into consideration, it's hard to not appreciate the fact that it was still a good film. For myself, a massive fan of Spider-Man since childhood, yes it was disappointing, but it had everything a typical summer blockbuster needed and people I know who aren't familiar with Spider-Man love(d) it! It did very well critically and had ultimate closure at the end. Think about it, both Spider-Man films before it ended with some amazing swinging sequence that just got you pumped for the next film, but 3 ended with him finally making amends with MJ after the events of the film. You can't help but leave the film thinking, "Spider-Man has damaged Peter's life to a massive extent... Maybe it's best if EVERYONE says goodbye to that." As I said earlier, Raimi wanted to end it there, it was always the intention and I thought he made that clear. 

On the subject of a reboot however, as pumped as I am for it (i'm almost more excited for The Amazing Spider-Man than The Avengers) it's just too early. There should've been a period of at least 5-10 years to allow people to go back to the original 3 and realise what a great series they were, get hungry for more, and go into this reboot being fully ready. I feel that releasing it next year (especially so close to The Avengers) is just a bad move.

*Controversial side-note* I didn't hate Topher Grace as Eddie Brock. I felt he played him pretty differently but in an interesting way. There's something about the meat-head that he is in the comics that just doesn't appeal to me. I think an intellectual, but skinny, Brock who eventually finds all this power and hunger for chaos, is waaaaaay scarier than some meat-headed bully who's given more means to just, well... bully. I admired his performance as Brock, it was just Venom that fell too short. Too much face-time for Grace, not hulking enough to be menacing, and a serious lack of that trademark tongue were just a few of the surface problems with Venom, but on the whole (as disappointed as I was) and after watching the film 10 times or so, I began to get over all of that hoo-hah that caused me such a huge hatred for it in the first place. I just accepted that it wasn't changing for myself or anyone and it isn't actually all that bad.

In short, sorry for waffling, but I love my Spider-Man and a reboot is an interesting idea that should be explored (and I think they've NAILED the casting so far, not to mention the exciting list of pros that Intruder listed) but just not this soon.

I think the reboot will be good but its odd to see a movie that shaped my childhood be done again before im out of my teens. Its like erasing my youth! Haha

reboot. screw tobey and all his crying, dancing, and emo hair swishing. you're gonna go see the reboot anyway. stop hating, and just be happy that Marvel is coming out with another movie for you to watch

I just feel they need to go with very young actors, like 19-21 range so that they can grow with the characters and movies. And if this is about the price of the movies why not try and do them all back/back/back (ala Lord of the Rings) that way while filming as one villian/actor leaves the set another comes in and they can keep the momentum working. While I'm willing to give this reboot a try I think the suit looks like the Ben Reilley Spiderman suit.

The reason why they went with a reboot was because Sam Raimi didn't want to do another one. He wasn't all that happy with making a third one, because the studio was trying to puppeteer him into doing what they wanted. Go figure, you saw what the result was. He never even really wanted to ever have Venom in there either. Reasons why, I've no idea.

And without Sam Raimi in the directors seat, Tobey Maguire had told the studios that he was not going to sign up for another Spidey film.

Does that mean I think it's a good idea to make another movie? God no. I think it's way too soon after 3, because no matter how good the movie is, the general public that really doesn't have all that much interest in comics, is going to blow off someone other than Tobey playing Peter Parker. We'll likely see numbers like those on Green Lantern. Decent showing the first weekend because of the hype, then a plummet in the ticket sales.

I'm really looking forward to this. Indruder summed it up right.

But here's the thing... As much as I'm supporting this film, I really wish they would have opted against retelling the origin story.

We all know how Spider-Man came to be. If it were up to me, it would still be a reboot - but I'd start it off with a fully established Spidey. Maybe throw in some flashbacks for the sake of exposition, like Batman 89... The webshooters and new constume should be enough to let people know this isn't a continuation of the previous franchise - aside from any other contradictions they'd choose to embrace. I'd just prefer to sit through a fresh story, not the origin again is all.

Ultimately, my first choice would have been for them to continue Raimi's franchise... without Raimi. Cast someone like Jake Gyllenhall to take over as Spidey, and give us Dylan Baker's Lizard. But all signs point to "The Amazing Spider-Man" being a great film, so I'm not gonna complain :) I can't wait. 2012 is gonna be a great year for CBMs!