He said: “I think I’ve learned about the importance of getting to the point and the importance of having limitations, and I’m hoping to take that into a production where I’m actually allowed to explore with more of the tools to pull it off with a little more splendour.

“I hope I don’t lose that edge that I’ve just found. That would be my approach to Spider-Man 4: to get back to the basics.”

Raimi, recently, has been working out who the villains will be.

Raimi was asked by MTV if he’d return to direct Spider-Man 5 and 6 but with those films so far away at this point, he has no definite answer. He said: “Every time I make one of the Spider-Man movies, I have to ask myself, is the character still intriguing to me? Do I love the character? Am I dying to tell the next story of Peter Parker and Spider-Man? And so far the answer has been yes.

“I’ve got to be super-excited about it. If I can’t reach that level of commitment and excitement, I think then there’d be somebody else better to do justice to the story. You have to ask me in two-and-half years.”

He was also asked by DVD & Blu-ray Review if Spider-Man was always his favourite comic book character and said: “Well, at different times I’ve had different favourites. Batman was my favourite for a tremendous amount of time and then when I got a little older, Spider-Man.”

And on whether he’d like to adapt any other comic book crimefighters into films, he told the magazine: “I’ve always loved the Shadow. I tried to get the chance to direct the movie years ago but they wouldn’t hire me. I read a few of the pulp novels that they had and the character was very mysterious. I liked the intensity with which he dealt with his foes. It was uncompromising.”