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Anyone harboring doubts about whether director Sam Raimi can still get his geek on for Spider-Man 3, due out May 4, need only ask him about the spanking-new goblin glider.

"Harry Osborn's new Goblin develops a form of glider called the sky stick," he says. "The old one, that's your generation. That clunky old Cadillac. He now fights with the thrill of sky boarding and the kill of jujitsu. Sky jitsu! Sky jitsu!"

Wearing a spiffy three-button jacket over a striped dress shirt and blue jeans, Raimi sits on a couch in his production office on the Sony lot, brushing his tousled hair back with his hand as his eyes widen with excitement. "That's actually ripped off from a trailer I saw years ago, for this movie Gymkata. They go, 'The thrill of gymnastics!' and then they show some guy flipping. 'The kill of karate!' And I love how they say 'karatay.' It was so cool."

Replicas of Spider-Man in various sizes adorn the room, and a Green Goblin helmet idles menacingly on the desk. Premiere has been to Raimi's office before, while he was making the first Spider-Man in 2002, and it appears the same bottle of Maker's Mark whiskey is still in its place of honor. "Oh, that other one was probably 50 bottles ago," Raimi says with a smile and a sigh, as he brings the conversation back to the goblin glider. "We're going to have our own style of fighting, like that trailer promised," he says. "With this board, he can whack Spidey and jab him and flip around. I really wanted to take the battles to the skies." Jazzed by the image, the 47-year-old director gyrates slightly on his couch.

"That's him. That's where he's coming from," says Tobey Maguire, who has played the webbed crusader in all three Spider-Man films, when he hears about Raimi's excitement. "He's making movies for the geek." If there were a holy trinity of fanboys-turned-blockbuster directors, Raimi would be at the head (with New Zealand-based Peter Jackson and that kid Bryan Singer at his side). First known for his Evil Dead trilogy of cult horror hits, Raimi evolved into a director of dark and disturbing dramas like A Simple Plan and The Gift. But now, first and foremost, he's the king of the Spider-Man franchise, which after two films has grossed more than $1.6 billion worldwide.

Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man on the cover of the January/February 2007 issue of Premiere.

"It's as if Elia Kazan is trapped inside of a gigantic action-picture director's body," says Thomas Haden Church, who plays Flint Marko (a.k.a. Sandman, a villain who can transform into sand and shape-shift) in the third film. "Like, if Elia Kazan and Otto Preminger had a baby."

Raimi insists that at its core, Spider-Man 3 is an intimate drama, even with a budget rumored to be in the astronomical $250 million range. "What was important to me was Peter Parker; the love of his life, Mary Jane Watson; and the terribly strained relationship with his best friend, Harry Osborn," he says. "And how that love triangle would continue to develop. I thought anything that distracted or detracted from that would be a problem."

And that, adds Raimi, even more than the Goblin's new glider, is what keeps him "fresh" for Spider-Man 3. (Most geeks are wounded romantics, after all.) "The best way to entertain the audience is by getting to know the character in a much more intimate way. I want to know who he is, what his weaknesses are. I want to know how miserable he feels. I want to know where he next has to grow to as a human being."