No one can ever accuse director, Sam Raimi of shying away from fragile franchises attached to legions of hard-to-please, unforgiving fans. As most are aware, Raimi will begin shooting the fourth Spider-Man film this March. Additionally, (besides the 22 other movies he has in developmental stages,) he's taking on another whopper of a franchise in the World of Warcraft. Raimi recently had some words with MTV regarding the his mega-franchise with the wall crawler, as he loosely discusses ideas and directions. While we're far away from specifics, Raimi does seem to have a general idea regarding how he wants to approach the proverbial minefield that this franchise has somewhat become.

The film is a mere 5 months away from shooting, and it does seem that the spot for the villain(s) have been filled. By whom however, remains a mystery. On board creatively, is Gary Ross, who is working on the much-discussed re-write of the script. (Ross will eventually move on to the Venom film after completing a spy thriller based on Donald Hamilton's series of books with character, Matt Helm, with Bradley Cooper rumored to star.) Raimi is looking to rebound after the critical disaster of the third Spider-Man film.

When MTV conducted a poll, asking which villains fans would like to see in the upcoming sequel, the results were closely in favor of The Lizard with 29% with Carnage coming in second at 26%. With these number brought to Raimi's attention, he responded that he did "love" the Lizard, but was "less familiar" with Carnage. While obviously unable to outright reveal who the identity of the villain, one could judge by his reaction that it is likely one of the two. Raimi further elaborated on the selection process :

"What we're trying to do right now is really understand the journey Peter is going to go on this time and have the villain maybe be a counter to that growth, something that he has to overcome," Raimi said. "Or maybe he has to grow in a way to overcome the villain, because there always seem to be stories of coming of age, of a young man growing up and learning things about life, so once we are identifying the exact movement that Peter has to grow to, I think the villain—and we're trying this right now; we're trying to choose a villain based on who would be the proper counter to that growth, so we really have dramatic conflict."

Are we left with any clues? If Spider-Man 3 had never existed on the earth, I would have sworn that this would mean Venom was our guy. While there are plenty of storylines from the Spider-Man lore that are not yet covered in the films, which have forced Spidey to grow in the way Raimi described (the death of Gwen Stacy, buried alive by Kraven, marriage, being cloned, etc.,) at this point, the universe of the Spider-Man movies is so jumbled, that it could conceivably be anyone. Did we learn anything? I think we did get a new perspective on how overall theme of the film.

I personally think that the villain should be the Lizard, based on the fact that he is an iconic Spidey villain and the fact that the Curt Connors character is already set in place from the previous films and ready to go. Also, in regards to Carnage...no disrespect intended towards those who voted for him, but I can't image how, given the general consensus that Venom was handled so very poorly in Spider-Man 3, that the vote ended up being this closely split on seeing Carnage get a treatment in the same series. (Really?? You want to see Carnage after all of THAT? Really??)

However, this may be Raimi's last go with the wall-crawler, and he could be looking to properly close out the franchise (at least, his version of it) before it gets rebooted by whoever Sony hires next. Therefore, what seems logical may not necessarily play a role, here. At the end of the day, Raimi is a genuine legend, and we should be hoping that he knocks this one out of the park. We know that he has the talent necessary.

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