You read that correctly. It's been flying all over the internet tonight that Sony are shelving the Spidey sequel in favour of a complete reboot. Sam Raimi has gone. Tobey Maguire's gone. Anne Hathaway's gone. John Malkovich has gone - not that he was ever in it in the first place. Which was the main problem, really. With Sam and Sony disagreeing over the director's determined casting call for his villain, The Vulture, Spidey 4's May release was looking unlikely. Now it won't happen at all.

Jamie Vanderbilt is stilll on board to scribble out his new version of Spider-Man's origins. But the rest of the talent will change over completely as Peter Parker goes back to his high-school days. Again. Sony have issued an official statement. You can read that at DeadlineHollywood, who broke the news. But here's what Sam said:

"Working on the Spider-Man movies was the experience of a lifetime for me. While we were looking forward to doing a fourth one together, the studio and Marvel have a unique opportunity to take the franchise in a new direction, and I know they will do a terrific job." Well, that sounds like a sincere and personal note from the departed director.

With Thor muscling in on Sony's old release date, expect wind soon of when Spider-Man 4 (or 1, or 0, or whatever number you want to call it) will hit our screens in 2012. No doubt the new Peter Parker will be some young actor like Zac Efron. And he'll probably be wearing 3-D specs to the party.