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It seems as though behemoth auteur James Cameron will get to live his Spider-Man directorial dreams after all, albeit vicariously through (500) Days of Summer's Marc Webb.  Jon Landau, Cameron's friend and associate, told MTV that he and Cameron met with Webb last week to help bring the project into the third dimension.  Now this development is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that, until recently, Cameron himself wanted his grubby little paws on the Marvel franchise.  For more of Landau's words, and the significance of this meeting of the minds, follow the jump.

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Those who recall the recent frenzy over who would helm the Spider-Man reboot will remember hearing James Cameron's name; after all, the Academy Award-winning director did write an extensive, story-boarded treatment (dubbed a "scriptment") back in 1991.  However, in another interview with MTV at the Critics Choice Awards, Cameron called the Spider-Man reboot Sam Raimi's "sloppy seconds."  And those sloppiest of seconds now belong to...

...Marc Webb, director of 2009's beloved (500) Days of Summer! It seems Cameron is willing to put aside his disdain for the all-too-soon revived franchise for an upstart director he's got his eye on.  "Jim loved (500) Days of Summer," according to Landau.  "It's not something that you would think is necessarily in his wheelhouse, but he really enjoyed that."  Well, I wouldn't have guessed Spider-Man'd be in Webb's "wheelhouse," but that's just how this story goes.

Apparently James Cameron and Jon Landau are further in favor of Webb's call to use 3D now, in pre-production, as more and more projects scramble to add 3D in post:

"Other movies are turning to it now, some of which I agree with, some of which I don't agree with. Clash of the Titans is coming out in 3D; they're converting it very hastily into 3D. I'm not in favor of that ... If you want to shoot a 3D movie, shoot it in 3D."

There's no word now on how involved Cameron will be on the Spider-Man project down the road, but my guess is he'll stick around.  Nobody devotes that much time and effort into fleshing out a project so completely and not retain a passion for it -- even if his idea was ditched almost 20 years ago.

Columbia hopes to release Spider-Man in 3D in July 2012.

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