Sony’s abandoned attempts at building a cinematic universe around The Amazing Spider-Man franchise are a textbook example of how not to create a shared mythology. Marc Webb’s two movies were decent enough superhero blockbusters, but the second installment in particular suffered massively from a lack of focus on the story, with the desire to continually hint at things to come severely impacting the final product.
A box office total of over $700 million is far from a disaster, but it was much less than the studio were hoping for, especially when they’d gone out of their way to lay the groundwork for various sequels and spinoffs. Not only were The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and 4 given release dates in June of 2016 and 2018, but Drew Goddard was also hired to write and direct Sinister Six. On top of that, Silver & Black and Spider-Man 2099 were also announced, before Sony discarded the idea entirely and struck a character-sharing agreement with Marvel Studios.
Tom Holland’s outings as Peter Parker have resulted in enthusiastic reviews and bumper box office business, but former Spidey Andrew Garfield is now being linked with a return as the MCU’s Spider-Man 3 looks to introduce the multiverse. Of course, fans have gone wild over the idea and a new poster from Instagram user Erathrim imagines Garfield’s third solo movie tackling the symbiote storyline, which you can check out below.
Knowing how Sony refuse to learn from their past mistakes, it wouldn’t have been surprising for one of The Amazing Spider-Man sequels to introduce Venom, even though the studio’s insistence to force the fan favorite into Spider-Man 3 had already caused Sam Raimi’s franchise to collapse. Andrew Garfield certainly deserved better, though, and if he does make a comeback, then hopefully he can resolve any unfinished business he has with the web-slinger.
