I have heard this before, and today I read the news. We get the following Spiderman 3 report from scifi.com:

As he had discussed previously, Raimi added that it was Arad’s idea to add the villain Venom to the mix. “Avi Arad, my partner and the former president of Marvel at the time, said to me, ‘Sam, … you’re not paying attention to the fans enough,'” Raimi said. “‘You need to think about them. You’ve made two movies now with your favorite villains, and now you’re about to make another one with your favorite villains. The fans love Venom. He is the fan favorite. All Spider-Man readers love Venom, and even though you came from ’70s Spider-Man, this is what the kids are thinking about. Please incorporate Venom. Listen to the fans now.’ And so that’s really where I realized, ‘OK, maybe I don’t have the whole Spider-Man universe in my head. I need to learn a little bit more about Spider-Man and maybe incorporate this villain to make some of the real die-hard fans of Spider-Man finally happy.'”

This is concerning and horrible news. I think the fans were fine with how Raimi was handling Spider-Man – I am guessing that is why it made so much damn money. What the fans did not want Mr. Arad was a glut of characters and villains in the third movie – do you remember what happened to the Batman franchise? Venom is a cool character – but he needs a movie unto himself. I would also argue that not all Spiderman Fans put Venom as their number 1 villain. I would choose many over Venom on my list.

This does not bode well for my stomach – It looks like Raimi is doing pre-emptive damage control to save face. With some lacklustre reviews coming onto the net, I think it is wise of Raimi to do so, in this case especially. Avi Arad needs to douche out his filthy cunt brain and read the old adage “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It.” Raimi has been doing a fantastic job, why step in and force the dude to push shit into the movie? Is it really for the fans? I doubt that, Venom is popular and they want to sell more toys, lunchboxes and other merch.

You know what fans like – good movies.