It’s being reported that Sony Pictures have hired Gary Ross to rewrite Spider-Man 4. Ross wrote, directed, and produced both Pleasantville and Seabiscuit — both which starred Tobey Maguire — and also wrote and produced Big and the upcoming new take on Creature From the Black Lagoon.

The writer is now the third man to be writing a draft of Spider-Man 4. Before him, David Lindsay-Abaire (Robots, Inkheart) wrote a draft, and then James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Rundown) wrote one as well. No word on if Ross will simply be working off what the previous two have put together or if he will be completely starting over with his script.

On one hand, it is a good thing that Gary Ross has written for Tobey Maguire twice before this. At the same time, those two films weren’t very similar to Spider-Man at all, which may cause one to worry. Naturally, director Sam Raimi will be closely watching the development of the script, so hopefully this all leads to good things.

Raimi, along with stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst are all said to be returning for the fourth installment of the franchise. It’s also a movie that Raimi is incredibly passionate about doing right to make up for what happened with Spider-Man 3 (Read: Sam Raimi Is On A Mission For “˜Spider-Man 4″²).

Spider-Man 4 currently has a May 6, 2011 release date reserved, but it’s fairly unlikely that the date will stick with no script or set production scheduled locked in yet.

[Source: THR]