Maguire in Spider-Man 4 and 5

Sony Pictures has confirmed that both Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi are close to reaching an agreement to respectively star in and direct two more installments of the “Spider-Man” movie franchise. Speculation suggests that the next two installments will be shot back-to-back in order to save money. No comments yet have confirmed whether Kirsten Dunst will be reprising her role or which villains Spider-Man face.

This is great news. As much faith as I have in Raimi as a producer, I was afraid a new director with the same actors may not have the same feel as the last three pictures. Sony said that they never even considered replacing Maguire (yeah, right), so why couldn’t they use that logic in regard to the “Ghostbusters” movie?

Update: The Hollywood Reporter says that Sony has also stepped up production on the “Venom” spinoff movie which will be written by Jacob Estes as well as Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. No word yet on if Topher Grace will reprise the role of Eddie Brock or Sony will pick a new actor for the role.