Spider-Man 4

Poor John Malkovich. Just days after the endearingly eccentric Being John Malkovich star officially signed on to play the villainous Vulture in Spider-Man 4, Sony has apparently decided to pull plug on the entire project. According to beloved Hollywood muckraker Nikki Finke, ongoing problems with the film's script have caused director Sam Raimi to quit the production, citing his inability to finish Spider-Man 4 in time for its the planned released date of Summer 2011. After that monumental domino fell, star Tobey Maguire and other castmembers quickly followed suit, bringing Malkovich's lifelong dream of starring in a massively-budgeted comic book flick to a tragic end.

Sony responded to the news with an upbeat press release in suspiciously quick fashion, as if they'd somehow anticipated this shocking turn of events:

"Culver City, CA (January 11, 2010) -- Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012. Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today they are moving forward with a film based on a script by James Vanderbilt that focuses on a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises."

Well, thank goodness Sony is sticking with the same writer whose problematic Spider-Man 4 script caused the film's director and the star to quit the entire franchise.