Another Pulitzer Prize Winner Caught in Spider-Man 4 Web

Spider-Man will crawl anywhere to find a good writer. Even Broadway.

The Hollywood Reporter says that David Lindsay-Abaire is in talks to write Spider-Man 4. Lindsay-Abaire won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for his play Rabbit Hole. Cynthia Nixon starred in the play on Broadway, and Nicole Kidman is set for a film version.

So far director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire are locks for Spider-Man 4. Kirsten Dunst is also expected back.

Plot details are not being handed out, of course. James Vanderbilt wrote a draft of a script, but there’s no word on what’s in that one or if any of it is being kept.

Lindsay-Abaire wrote the book for the musical version of Shrek, soon to open on Broadway (an out of town tryout was met with a fairly positive response, just said the show needed some work, but it looked a lot better than some recent, high profile efforts). If you’re not a theater person, his name will mean nothing to you, but trust me, he’s considered one of the most talented writers working in theater today.

THR says this:

Lindsay-Abaire has said in interviews that his plays tend to be “peopled with outsiders in search of clarity,” which would put his work on sympathetic terms with Peter Parker, who in his classic incarnation is the perpetual outsider.

The choice of scribe also signals that that filmmakers are intent to focus on character, something that critics said got lost in the third installment.

It’s true that his work is character-oriented, but I always think of him as a writer who’s very into playing with words and language, what is said and unsaid. Just trust me, he’s good and actors want to be in his plays. What his comics background is, though, I don’t know. Does it matter? Should we want a screenwriter for these movies who is steeped in the mythology and comics world? Sometimes being an aficionado helps, but sometimes it gets in the way. Well, we’ll see.

And I said “another Pulitzer Prize winner” in the post title because Michael Chabon, who worked on Spider-Man 2 (my personal favorite) won the prize for fiction in 2001 for his novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.