What Andrew Garfield's The Amazing Spider-Man 3 Would Have Looked Like

Warning: Contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Andrew Garfield's The Amazing Spider-Man 3 never happened, but the return of Garfield's Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home has many fans wishing Sony had completed his planned story. The Amazing Spider-Man movies were originally intended to begin the creation of a shared Sony universe similar to the MCU. However, these plans ultimately fell through, leading to an eventual Spider-Man recasting with Tom Holland.

After three Spider-Man films starring Tobey Maguire, Sony decided to reboot the character with The Amazing Spider-Man, which retold his origin with the younger Andrew Garfield. The movie received generally favorable reviews despite telling a rather similar story, but its sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, suffered from trying to do too much. Although Sony had hoped to make a third and fourth movie with Garfield, along with other spin-off projects, they later scrapped these ideas and moved forward with a deal with the MCU instead.

Yet, the fan reaction to seeing Tom Holland's Spider-Man meet Maguire and Garfield's versions in No Way Home has many wishing Garfield could have completed his third movie. There has not yet been an official response to the chatter around the canceled Amazing Spider-Man 3, and whether Garfield would even return for such a project. Nevertheless, if Sony had followed through with their initial plans, this is what The Amazing Spider-Man 3 would have looked like.

How The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Set Up A Sequel

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ended with clear plans for a sequel. In the movie's final battle, Peter subdued both Electro and Harry Osborn, sending the latter to prison, but not before Harry killed Peter's girlfriend Gwen Stacy. His guilt from Gwen's death caused Peter to abandon his Spider-Man duties for five months, until Aleksei Sytsevich, also called "the Rhino," broke out of prison with the help of Harry and his associate Gustav Fiers, a.k.a. "the Gentleman." Harry, Rhino, and the Gentleman's team-up, as well as the film's credits scene, implied that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 would have introduced a version of the Sinister Six.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 also included several details about Peter's deceased parents that would have likely been addressed in a sequel. The opening sequence for the movie was a video message from his father, Richard Parker, who was a scientist at Oscorp. He and his wife had been trying to flee aboard a private jet when it crashed, killing them both. Later in the film, Peter learned the reason for his parents' disappearance — Richard had refused to cooperate with Norman Osborn's plans to make biogenetic weapons with his research. The full extent of this research remained somewhat vague in the movie, but surely would have had larger consequences for Garfield's Spider-Man going forward.

What's Been Revealed About The Amazing Spider-Man 3's Story

Denis Leary, who played Gwen's father George Stacy, revealed (via IGN) that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 would have been about resurrecting people: "Part of the discussion was that possibly in 3, there was this idea, at one point, Spider-Man would be able to take this formula and regenerate the people in his life that had died." Characters such as George, who had died in the first Amazing Spider-Man, would come back to life, along with Norman Osborn and Richard Parker. One deleted scene from the second film showed Oscorp freezing Norman's head, preserving him for a potential return in a future movie. Another deleted scene also revealed that Richard was somehow still alive, setting up for Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man to be reunited with at least one of his parents, and perhaps even berate them for not being present in his life growing up.

Most importantly, though, this ability to revive people would have presented Peter with the opportunity to bring back Gwen Stacy. A potential resurrection could've been something he had to struggle with morally; perhaps Peter would need to sacrifice something in return, or Gwen's father George might have argued against it since they did not know its potential consequences. Dealing with these themes of death and loss in such an explicit way would have worked well to allow Peter to fully accept the tragedies he had faced and start to heal from them. Then again, if Peter was able to revive her, Gwen could have become Spider-Gwen, who has since made her cinematic debut in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Regardless of the results of tampering with life in this way, this story arc could have helped Peter accept his responsibilities and come to peace with them.

Along with future The Amazing Spider-Man movies, Sony also had plans for Venom and The Sinister Six spin-offs, using Fiers' "the Gentleman" as a recruiter to locate Spider-Man's enemies. Director Marc Webb told Den of Geek that they wanted to bring back Norman as the main villain who would lead the Sinister Six. Vulture was also discussed as another possible member of the villain group. It was also rumored that the character Felicia Hardy, who appeared in a small role in Garfield's Spider-Man movies, would return in her own spin-off as the Black Cat. In the comics, Black Cat has been an enemy, ally, and love interest for Spider-Man, but considering that Peter's heartbreak over Gwen would still be rather fresh, she would likely have been an ally to him at best.

How No Way Home Changed Garfield's Spider-Man Story

In No Way Home, Garfield's Peter shared a bit about his experiences with loss. Although all of the variant Spider-Man characters had lost parental figures and others close to them, Garfield's Peter was the only one who lost "his MJ" — Gwen Stacy. As if her death wasn't sad enough, it was something that Peter had almost prevented; despite getting caught in his web, her head still hit the ground, which killed her instantly. Although the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 showed Peter resuming his duties as Spider-Man in order to confront the Rhino, No Way Home painted his return as less hopeful than originally portrayed.

After losing Gwen, Peter explained that he struggled to remain the same friendly neighborhood Spider-Man that he had been, and gradually grew bitter under the weight of his responsibilities and loneliness. Even though he continued going through the motions of being a superhero, his heart wasn't in it anymore, and he no longer pulled his punches, either. Garfield's Spider-Man story changed from one of perseverance and hope — as he learned to overcome his profound grief and live again — to one of tragedy.

Why The Amazing Spider-Man 3 Was Canceled

Ultimately, there were a lot of factors that went into the decision to cancel future Amazing Spider-Man movies with Andrew Garfield. The 2014 Sony hacks certainly played a part; by revealing information the company had not wanted released yet, it made them less inclined to want to move forward with those leaked ideas. Sony was also in the early stages of negotiating with Marvel over the future of Spider-Man at the time. Although there has been some confusion over exactly when and how it was decided that Garfield would not play the MCU's Spider-Man, The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe shared that Kevin Fiege proposed the idea of a reboot, instead of a continuation, in a meeting with Sony Co-Chairman Amy Pascal before she stepped down.

While the poor critic reviews for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie certainly did not make Sony executives more inclined to continue the franchise, it did not directly contribute to their decision to cancel it, either. One rumor suggested that Garfield put himself in a bad light with Sony due to a last-minute cancellation. He was supposed to attend a gala after the 2014 World Cup, where he would've been announced as the star of The Amazing Spider-Man 3, and his decision to cancel offended some executives enough that they didn't want to continue with Garfield as Spider-Man. It wasn't the first time the actor had upset Sony, either. Garfield had been outspoken about some of his hopes for the character's future, including the possibility of giving Peter Parker a boyfriend, in a statement that he was later asked to retract. No concrete evidence exists for whether or not these factors contributed to the decision to reboot Spider-Man once again with a fresh new face, but regardless of why, No Way Home has made many fans regret the choice to cancel The Amazing Spider-Man 3.

Next: Why Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man Return Is More Likely Than Tobey Maguire