James Vanderbilt Returning to Pen 'Spider-Man' Sequel (Exclusive)

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Columbia isn’t even done shooting The Amazing Spider-Man, its Spider-Man reboot, but it has already begun working on a sequel.

James Vanderbilt, who penned Amazing, will be back behind the keyboard for the continuation of the new movie franchise.

Vanderbilt had a meeting with the Spider-Man filmmakers and studio execs yesterday outlining his take, getting a thumbs up, and will now begin writing.

Vanderbilt has become part of the Spider-Man family at Columbia, which has enjoyed great success with a tightknit group of creative people. Vanderbilt first worked on Spider-Man 4 for the studio, back when Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire were planning to continue the series. At the time, he was chosen for his character-driven approach to the story rather than a focus on special effects and worked on an outline for a trio of films.

When the project was reconfigured into a reboot, Vanderbilt was brought over to pen the new, character-focused version. (Alvin Sargent, also a member of the Columbia’s Spider-Man family, worked on the new script.)

Amazing, which is scheduled to wrap its Los Angeles portion by mid-April, stars Andrew Garfield as the titular hero and is being directed by Marc Webb. Columbia has scheduled a July 3, 2012 release for the 3D movie.

Avi Arad, Laura Ziskin and Matt Tolmach are producing the current movie as well as the sequel. The reboot series is being overseen at Columbia by Rachel O'Connor and Hannah Minghella.

Prior to being ensnared by Spider-Man’s web, Vanderbilt, repped by WME and UFUSE Management, wrote Zodiac, David Fincher’s serial killer tale starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr.  He recently worked on a polish of Columbia’s remake of Total Recall, which is slated to shoot later this year.