Trivia: A great deal of Flint Marko/Sandman's storyline was edited out of the film by the studio due to the long run-time. One scene early in the film showed that the scientists who accidentally created Sandman were racked with guilt when they discovered they might have activated the machine with a person inside of it. Another scene had Sandman visiting a doctor researching his daughter's rare disease whom he had been corresponding with in prison. Yet another scene showed him following his daughter in a park, and morphing into a giant sandcastle that she plays with. And finally, his daughter was going to appear in the final battle, and would appeal to her father to stop hurting people and living a life of crime to get money, as she accepted that she was going to die no matter what. Her words would be what convinced him to seek forgiveness from Peter for accidentally killing Uncle Ben.
Trivia: Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man, makes a cameo appearance when Peter Parker is reading about Spider-Man getting the key to the city. He is the man that walks up and talks to him.
Trivia: While taunting Spider-Man about Mary Jane in the final battle scene, Venom says, "How's that sound, tiger?" He says the same line in the 1990s Spider-Man animated series.
Trivia: Director Sam Raimi's daughter makes a cameo appearance as the little girl who sells her camera to J. Jonah Jameson near the end.
Trivia: Each of the black suits used in the film cost $30,000.
Trivia: At the event where he is given the keys to the city, Spider-Man shouts "Shazam" as he makes his entrance. This is the catchphrase of Captain Marvel in the DC comics, the main rival to the Marvel comic book franchise.
Trivia: Topher Grace is never referred to as "Venom" once in the entire movie.
Trivia: Composer Christopher Young appears as a piano player at Mary Jane Watson's rehearsal scene.
Trivia: Spider-Man 3 combines all three Raimi brothers. Sam Raimi as the director, Ivan Raimi as one of the writers and Ted Raimi as an actor in the role of Hoffman.
Trivia: The 60's Spider-Man theme is played when he gets the key of the city.
Trivia: Reportedly, Kirsten Dunst had recorded so many variations of screams, whimpers and gasps during production of the first two films, she didn't need to record any new ones for this film... the production had a massive library of unused screams from the previous films at their disposal.
Trivia: Much of Peter's arrogance, growing violent side and showing-off in the film was in a different context in the original script. In the original script, he was starting to become comfortable now that Spider-Man was "accepted" and idolized by the public, and because his private life was doing well. He would then become arrogant as a result of this fame and adoration, as it got to his head and he begins developing a superiority complex. (Director Sam Raimi stated he was intended to be giving in to the "sin of pride.") Ultimately, he would learn humility by nearly losing MJ and losing his best friend Harry. When the studio forced Sam Raimi to add Venom into the script late in the writing process, these scenes had to be restructured at the last minute to be the result of the symbiote.
Trivia: Despite the common complaint that he wasn't muscular enough for the role, Topher Grace actually put on over 20 pounds of muscle mass for the movie through an intensive training program.
Trivia: When Mary Jane is looking through her cell phone, most of the people's names are some of the location managers.
Trivia: All the webs on the balloons in the scene where Spider-Man gets the key to the city were hand drawn with a Sharpie.
Trivia: In a strange bit of irony, the red-headed Mary Jane is played by Kirsten Dunst, who is naturally blond... while the blonde Gwen Stacey is portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard, who is naturally a red-head.
Trivia: The "Birth of Sandman" scene in which Sandman reconstitutes himself took over six months to produce because the particle effects were so intricate to render, and the filmmakers wanted to really nail the look, pacing and tone of the scene. In fact, before producing that scene, the visual effects artists actually studied sand looks, physics and dynamics for several years, knowing that Sandman was intended to be a major villain in the third film.
Answer: At one point in time, Sony was set to make "Spider-Man 4" with director Sam Raimi and stars Tobey MacGuire and Kirsten Dunst. However, Raimi was unable to find a script he was satisfied with after many months of working with different writers, and he was having issues with the studio attempting to force the film into a 2011 release date, which he felt wouldn't give him the time he needed to make a quality film. Thus, he and the actors dropped out and the studio instead opted to go ahead with a reboot, in the form of The Amazing Spider-Man.