So, when it finally does see the light of day it appears that John Malkovich will be bringing his own brand of avian malevolence to Sam Raimi’s recently delayed Spider-Man 4.

According to Comingsoon.net a translation from an Italian interview Malkovich confirms that not only is he playing the villain, he is still waiting for a final script to read.

The Italian website BadTaste.it did the translation and you can read the whole transcript on their site if you can read Italian, but the confirmation of Malkovich as Vulture is a good thing. Always capable of imbuing a film with a steely-eyed gravitas he seems a natural successor to step in the trousers of moral turpitude, recently relinquished by Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe.

If Raimi has learned the lesson of the third film in the Spider-Man series then we won’t be seeing a flock of villain lining up to take out our friendly neighbourhood Spidey; there is the possibility as Raimi has hinted in the past that Vulture would be accompanied by his fellow super villain Electro but with all the speculation as to roster of evil-doers it is probably best to wait for an official word.

With the Green Lantern movie joining Thor in competing with the electric Kick-Ass on the superhero front, will Spider-Man 4 still ruffle feathers on release?