Update: Sony has denied this story and the IESB article has been changed. The production is on hiatus, but only for the holidays.

IESB is reporting that Spiderman 4, originally due in 2011, may have been put on hold due to a creative disagreement on who should and shouldn’t be the villains.

Director Sam Raimi is apparently pushing for the Vulture, but the studio wants someone more popular. Which one? Well, according to the article, the studio doesn’t know who they want for the adversary. If true, this would be the second time the Vulture has been denied villain-ship. He was originally going to be in Spiderman 3 as the Sandman’s partner-in-crime.

I have a solution for the filmmaker’s woes. Why not Lizard? His character has already been setup in the earlier films, so the film wouldn’t have to spend time telling the origins of yet another new character. I believe he’s also more popular villain than Vulture. Or if they’re willing to up the stakes, there’s also Carnage. Of course, they’d have to avoid the mistakes they’ve made previously with Venom and really let the character be a monster and do some real damage.

So far, there has been no official word from the studio or Raimi. Right now, everything is one giant question mark. Hopefully, it isn’t true and if it is, let’s hope that the parties are able to come to an agreement. I would love to see Raimi pull through and make up for the busy mess that was Spiderman 3.