After the shock news last night that Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire were leaving the Spider-Man franchise, with Sony abandoning Spider-Man 4 entirely in favour of a reboot for the series in 2012, more details have been emerging about Spidey's next big screen adventure.

Entertainment Weekly has now revealed the path that Sony intends to follow with its next Spider-Man film, and it seems to be using Batman Begins as some form of template. We're heading back into origin story territory it seems (although that seems an odd choice for us, given that the first Spider-Man movie will have done this just 10 years before the reboot), and apparently the studio is "interested in a more gritty, contemporary redo of the series". The script for the new film has been penned by James Vanderbilt (who wrote Zodiac), and will see Peter Parker in "a more contemporary setting, as a teenager battling today's issues". They'll have him on Facebook at this rate.

Inevitably, speculation has begun as to who will direct the next film, with Sony apparently hunting for a younger director. The name that Entertainment Weekly has mooted is Marc Webb, who made the terrific (500) Days Of Summer, and it also reports that Michael Bay has "previously expressed interested" (but there's no chance of him directing in our view), and that Gary Ross (director of Seabiscuit and writer of one of the Spider-Man 4 drafts) could be an option too (although a remote one).

As for who will be playing Spider-Man? Expect all actors of a certain vintage to be linked: Zac Efron, Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Cera, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson we suspect would be in the running, unless Sony opts to go with an unknown.

Expect more news in the coming months, with the film now set for release in the summer of 2012.

EW