Nimrod Antal Is Sam Raimi's Pick For The Spider-Man Reboot?

The last name touted as front runner for directorship of the new Spider-Man series was 500 Days of Summer's Marc Webb. Okay – there's that infamous Freakonomics theory that your name can shape your life, but maybe it seems this Webb might not stick. Another new name has been put forward, and this time it's none other than Nimrod Antal, director of Kontroll, Vacancy, Armored and the upcoming Predators.

So, what did he do to deserve this honor?

According to Quiet Earth, it shook out a little like this:

Sam Raimi met Nimrod on the Sony lot before his first US film, Vacancy. They clicked, so Sam hired him to direct Armored. Now, Predators is getting some great word-of-mouth around tinsel-town. Warners loves it and now Sam Raimi and Sony want the director back at the studio to helm Spider-man.

Their source is apparently "an industry insider" which is at once vague and discouraging, and this sort of story is way outside of the Quiet Earth's typical comfort zone, but I like the site a great deal and they have a rock-solid reputation for trustworthiness.

The angle with Webb is apparently that he's an expert in the young and hip and his Peter Parker and Mary Jane could have the same pizazz as Summer's Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. The angle with Antal, seemingly, is that he's got experience with action sequences and – and this is the most interesting thing to the rumour, I think – satisfies both Sam Raimi and Sony.

Is the implication here that Sam Raimi is being kept on as a producer or consultant, or somehow being given some exit privileges that afford him say in his successor. Of course, even a credited position can easily mean nothing at all and we all know how Joel Schumacher's Batman films turned out even though they had Tim Burton's name in the credit block.