Ted Raimi, the brother of Spider-Man and sequel director Sam Raimi, says he'll be reprising the role Hoffman, a reporter at the Daily Bugle, for the sequel, which is targeted to begin filming next month.

"I have more scenes with J.K. Simmons, who is J. Jonah Jameson," Raimi says. "Yeah, there's a bunch more scenes. We've done some preliminary rehearsal, even if we don't have a script. He's a good guy to clown around with. He is J. Jonah Jameson."

Raimi says that, like his brother, he's been a Spider-Man fan for a long time.

"It really endures, that character," he says. "It's a wonderful story about what it means to be a teenager and the power you feel as a teenager. And how afraid everyone is of you and how terrible it is and what an awful place to be in in your life. You're starting to look like a man, you have the responsibilities of a man, but you're treated like a child. And it's just an incredibly confusing time.

"It's a fable about teenager-hood. I'm tearing this thing apart and being philosophical here. The spider (that bites Peter Parker) is, in a way, sort of like puberty in that he gets all this power all at once and he doesn't know what to do with it. He certainly grows up very fast."

Hoffman was a character created for the film franchise.

"He was a minor character that Sam and I made into a larger character," Raimi says. "We sort of sat down at Sam's house and we figured out the best ways to expand this character a little bit. There really wasn't anything funny, per se, in the script, and I think Sam wanted something that was a little goofier."

One of the scenes that didn't make Spider-Man's final cut involved a tongue-twisting dialogue between Jameson and Hoffman about "Peter Parker's pants."

"It was a different ending that didn't fit," Raimi says.

Raimi gives a thumb up to Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

"I think he's highly intelligent, one of the most intelligent actors I've ever met," Raimi says of Maguire. "His acting ability speaks for itself, but he's truly a generous person, a generous, warm human being. I had a blast working with him. He's a very funny kid. He's very quick. He's a nice kid."

Raimi, 38, known from such television series as Xena: Warrior Princess and seaQuest DSV, says he currently prefers movie roles over TV roles

"Doing TV straight for 10 years, it's cool, but it's a little bit of a grind," Raimi says. "You get confused after two or three years. It's like, 'Didn't I do this scene like two or three times before?'

"Right now, movies is sort of the way to go. Movies are fun to do."

Rob Allstetter, Deputy Sports Editor for The Detroit News, has been a comics journalist for the past decade, having written for numerous publications. He currently publishes The Comics Continuum. He can be reached at RobAlls@aol.com.