So Sony is going to film 4 & 5 back to back...? Why the hell didn't they adopt this idea during the pre-production of 3? That way Raimi could have done his Sandman/Harry film and woven in plot elements for Venom, like the gradual introduction of Eddie Brock and the black suit, so he could be the primary villain in the fourth movie.
Good point. If any movie needed to be separated into two, it was Spider-Man 3.
What's a bit funny is that writer Alvin Sargent (who co-wrote both Spider-Man 2
and to a lesser extent Spider-Man 3
) remarked that Raimi and Co. thought about splitting up the film but couldn't find a good cliffhanger.
Umm...what about when Topher Grace turns into Venom? I think that would have been as good cliffhanger as any, but hey, what do I know?
I guess it depends on how they define "cliffhanger." It could be they wanted a cliffhanger, but with a complete story as well (such as Harry's discovery at the end of Spidey 2) instead of a direct "To Be Continued..." cliffhanger.
Maybe they didn't want to break the story with Eddie getting the black suit because they couldn't figure out a way to add more stuff into what became the latter half of Spidey 3. Maybe they felt it would have been a better character arc for Eddie (and to an extent, Peter) to show all of it in one movie (kinda like Nolan's original thoughts on Harvey Dent verses what ultimately happened in TDK