Anne Hathaway reveals how close she came to playing Black Cat in SPIDER-MAN 4

When Sam Raimi was developing Spider-Man 4the producers wanted Anne Hathaway take on the role of Felicia Hardy, aka Black Cat, which is a truly perfect casting choice. She went on to play Catwoman The Dark Knight Risesbut she would have made a great Black Cat in the Spider-Man franchise.

We would also have seen the fourth Spider-Man movie John Malkovich as Adrian Toomes, aka The Vulture, and Angelina Jolie like Toomes’ daughter, who would become the Vulture. Dylan Baker he would also reprise his role as Doctor Curt Connors and we would see his transformation into the Lizard. Oh yeah! Bruce Campbell he would play Mysterio. Yes, there was a lot going on in Spider-Man 4.

During a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Hathaway shared how close she came to playing Black Cat and revealed that she was officially cast in the role:

“Uh, I didn’t wear the costumes and I didn’t read the script beyond the audition slides. I got the part and, yeah, I just… I think that’s probably more the producers’ story to tell than mine, if anything.” should they decide to say so.

“The Spider-Man universe has become so huge and exciting. He’s just reinventing himself and all these things, so I wouldn’t want to do more than necessary.”

When previously talking about Spider-Man 4, storyboard artist Jeffrey Henderson offered some insight into what Raimi intended to do by saying, “We were going to open the movie with this montage of all the villains that we knew Sam would never be able to use in the Spider-Man movies. Why Peter, now that MJ is gone ‘He’s gone, he’s finally made up and he loves being Spider-Man. He’s really enjoying himself. So we were going to try to do The Shocker, Mysterio, Stilt-Man and that kind of thing.”

He also explained, “It would be part of the beginning of the film’s montage with a montage of C- and D-list villains who we knew would never be used as primary antagonists: Mysterio, Shocker, Prowler, the old-school-onesie version of the Rhinoceros, perhaps also Stilt, etc.”

The Vulture would be the main villain, though, and speaking about Raimi’s vision of that character, Henderson explained: “The thing we kept coming back to was that, as a character, everyone would write off the Vulture as just an old guy. in a stupid green suit. So we wanted to go in the opposite direction and really make him the most fearsome and formidable opponent that Spider-Man has faced in the series.”

You can check out some of Henderson’s artwork for Spider-Man 4 Here. There are a lot of interesting things! Unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be. Raimi previously explained that he simply couldn’t bring the script to the level of greatness he wanted it to be. He said:

“It was a very painful experience for me. I wanted to make a Spider-Man movie to redeem myself from this. [The aborted] ‘Spider-Man 4’: that’s what it was all about. I wanted to go out on a high note. I didn’t want to just make another one that worked well enough. I had a really high standard in mind. And I didn’t think I could get the script to the level I was hoping for by that start date.

The director also talked about the villains and how he would have liked to cast Bruce Campbell as Mysterio, including Kraven the Hunter. He said:

“I miss the really cool cameo we had for Bruce Campbell. [Mysterio] it was one of the possibilities. We had other things in mind too, but that was one of them. And I missed Kraven the Hunter. We were going to turn that character into the next Spider-Man; I’ve always wanted to see Kraven fight Spider-Man on the big screen. I thought he would be very unique. He’s the ultimate hunter and Spider-Man is like the most agile trickster in the skies. And I wanted to see Peter move forward as a human being.”

It’s a shame Raimi never got to tell that story!