Back in 2014, Sony saw its upcoming summer tentpole The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as a sure-fire hit. Executives were hoping that it would clear $1 billion, paving the way for an MCU-style universe of films. They’d already jumped the gun on rushing sequels and spin-offs into development, banking on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 being a hit. However, owing to it being the worst Spidey outing since Spider-Man 3, audiences didn’t turn out for the film and it didn’t do well enough for Sony’s plans to come to fruition. So, here are 10 Things Sony Had Planned After The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
The Amazing Spider-Man 3
Unsurprisingly, the original plan to follow up The Amazing Spider-Man 2 involved The Amazing Spider-Man 3. Sony planned to bring back Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn (probably to give him a larger role, as he had been woefully underused in The Amazing Spider-Man 2), while the plot would’ve focused on Peter Parker’s attempts to move on from the death of Gwen Stacy. Grief over the death of a loved one that was at least partially his fault is an essential part of the Spider-Man character; since his origin story relies heavily on Uncle Ben’s murder, this might’ve felt like a rehashed emotional arc.
A Sinister Six movie
If the ending of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 didn’t telegraph it obviously enough, Sony planned to pull together the Sinister Six in a future spin-off movie, with Drew Goddard directing. This is the team of supervillains that is dedicated to destroying Spider-Man, so the spin-off would’ve gone a long way towards building up the Spidey-based cinematic universe that Sony was desperate to get off the ground. Done right, this Sinister Six movie could’ve been the dark flip-side of a film like The Avengers. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what could’ve been (unless they resurrect the project when Tom Holland’s Peter Parker joins Sony’s Marvel Universe).
Spider-Man facing the Sinister Six
According to director Marc Webb, the Sinister Six movie was going to be made between The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and 3, to allow the team to be introduced before facing Spidey. The punnily named Webb explained, “They were going to make a Sinister Six movie before we did the third one...Chris Cooper was going to come back and play the Goblin. We were going to freeze his head, and then he was going to be brought back to life. And then there was that character called the Gentleman. We had some notions about how to do it, but I think maybe we were thinking too far ahead when we started building in those things.”
Bringing Sam Raimi back to the director’s chair
When a group known as the Guardians of Peace hacked into Sony’s computer systems and leaked a bunch of emails, it was revealed that the studio had been in touch with Sam Raimi about possibly returning to the Spider-Man film franchise. And they didn’t just want him to come back and helm The Amazing Spider-Man 3 or a spin-off as a one-and-done commitment; they discussed the possibility of Raimi coming in and helming an entire trilogy.
This could’ve been a second Amazing Spider-Man trilogy (4, 5, and 6) exploring the life of an older Peter Parker (college, marriage, job, kids etc.), but that’s just speculation.
A Black Cat movie
While Felicia Hardy was going to be a villain in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 and she appeared briefly in a cameo by Felicity Jones as Norman Osborn’s assistant in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, we still have yet to see Black Cat portrayed on the screen. When The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was supposed to be an Iron Man-style springboard to a vast universe of movies, Sony was developing a movie about Black Cat that would’ve presumably had Jones reprising her role. The studio hired Lisa Joy, who would go on to co-create HBO’s Westworld, to write the script for it.
Shailene Woodley would’ve played Mary Jane
To differentiate itself from the Tobey Maguire trilogy, The Amazing Spider-Man series used Gwen Stacy as the love interest as opposed to Mary Jane Watson. In a deleted scene from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Shailene Woodley played Mary Jane. This was supposed to set her up for a larger role in the third movie onwards. There were also rumors that Peter would find a way to bring people back from the dead, and would use it to resurrect Gwen and her father, Captain Stacy, but let’s face it — if that’s true, it would’ve been laughably dumb. Like, “Save Martha!” levels of dumb.
A Spider-Man 2099 spin-off
Originally, a spin-off starring the Spider-Man 2099 incarnation of the character — the one from a distant future powered by futuristic technology, with his own personal A.I. (okay, some elements are similar to Tom Holland’s Stark-powered Peter Parker) — was planned for a 2017 release. Spider-Man 2099 did eventually make it to the screen in the bizarre post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. He was played by Oscar Isaac (although he was credited as “Interesting Man #1” to preserve the spoilers through the credits), suggesting he’s being primed for a larger role in the future, since the producers wouldn’t cast such a big movie star for a simple cameo appearance.
The development of Peter Parker’s character arc
Andrew Garfield has said that he was personally working with the screenwriters on the development of Peter Parker’s character arc: “I was actually starting to workshop ideas with Alex Kurtzman, who was going to be writing it. We thought to kind of start from the base level; the foundational level of where have we left Peter and where do we want to see him go and what’s logical. And how do we build upon where we left off with this deep, desperate moment with Gwen? So, yeah, we got to some pretty heavy places and I was really excited to kind of explore it and be involved on the ground level like that. But anyway, it wasn’t meant to be.”
Alex Kurtzman’s Venom
Long before Tom Hardy’s Venom movie came along with no ostensible connections to Spider-Man, Sony was working on a Venom film set in The Amazing Spider-Man universe, with Alex Kurtzman in line to direct. Kurtzman and his writing partner Roberto Orci were working with Bill and Ted co-creator Ed Solomon on the script.
Kurtzman and Orci have a shaky track record. They gave us the Star Trek reboot movies, but they also gave us the Transformers franchise. Kurtzman is the showrunner for Star Trek: Discovery, but he also directed that awful Mummy reboot. So there’s no telling if Kurtzman’s Venom movie would’ve been any good.
The Amazing Spider-Man 4
Sony executives were really planning ahead with The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, banking obsessively on the success of the second one. Not only were they planning one sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man 2; they were planning two. Plot details are unknown and impossible to speculate, since The Amazing Spider-Man 3 didn’t even get made, let alone 4. When the release date for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 got pushed back to 2018, the release date for The Amazing Spider-Man 4 got pushed off the schedule indefinitely. When The Amazing Spider-Man 3 got canceled, obviously, The Amazing Spider-Man 4 got canceled with it.