While Sam Raimi continues to play “come and get me, and don’t forget the brink truck” with the studios about returning to direct Spider-Man 4, the studio is already moving ahead with trying to bang out a script for the fourth installment in the arachnid knight’s neverending quest to whine about how great power means great responsibility, etc. The latest move to ensure that their cash cow doesn’t keel over from inactivity by the studio is bringing in James Vanderbilt, last seen writing the crime procedural “Zodiac” (and before that making people dizzy with his head-spinning yarn in “Basic”), to take a crack at the script. He’ll be replacing screenwriter David Koepp, who wrote the first two films, and was brought in to take a stab at the latest draft.

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Plot points are being closely guarded by the studio, though the intent is to scale back the story to include only two villains instead of repeating the “Spider-Man 3″ model. The third installment, which grossed $336.5 million domestically this year, saw Spidey battle a busy triumvirate of evildoers in the forms of Venom, Sandman and Goblin. It was widely reckoned as overly cumbersome with one too many plot lines.

You’re not kidding, person who wrote the article. Three villains was about one too many last time around. If that wasn’t enough, Raimi had to jam an extra love interest in Gwen Stacy into the mix, which was a really bad mistake. And if THAT wasn’t enough, he had to go and re-work the murder of Uncle Ben from the first film!

At this point, I’m not even sure if bringing back Sam Raimi is a good idea. If “Spider-Man 3″ proved anything, it’s that Raimi has simply run out of good ideas for Spidey. He was basically repeating himself, including the transformation gag that Peter goes through halfway into the film.

As for Dunst and Maguire? Dunst is a throwaway, and Maguire, well, they’ll probably need him back…