Here Is What We Know About Andrew Garfield's Spider Man 3
Andrew Garfield was intended to be the face of Sony's Spider-Man cinematic universe. Here's why the third amazing movie didn't actually happen.
Fans have called for the return of Andrew Garfield's incarnation of the popular web-slinger in a third Amazing Spider-Man movie for quite a while now. Caught in the amidst between Tobey Maguire's beloved Spider-Man and Tom Holland's Spider-Man in the MCU, Garfield's movie proved to be the least famous with critics and audiences for years. Although, as time has gone on there has been a cultural re-evaluation of both Garfield's depiction of the web-head and the movies themselves.
Here is everything we know about the original plans for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and why the film in the end never came to be.
Who Was Associated in The Amazing Spider-Man 3
Both Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield and director Marc Webb were approved to return. Webb revealed that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 would have been his last Spider-Man movie as director. That said, the rightly named Webb would have remained as producer and creative consultant for the subsequent movies in the franchise. In addition, all three writers of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Jeff Pinkner, were announced to comeback for the sequel. However, Orci left the movie to write and direct Star Trek Beyond (2016), although he also left that project while retaining producer credit.
Chris Cooper revealed in CBR that he would have had a "huge" role in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 subsequent to his brief appearance as Harry's father and Oscorp CEO, Norman Osborn, in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Likewise, Paul Giamatti shared in an interview with Collider that he would have reprised his role as Rhino. Denis Leary, who appeared in the first movie as Captain Stacy and whose memory haunts Peter in the second movie, could also have been part of The Amazing Spider-Man 3. It was also broadly believed that Shailene Woodley, who was cast as Mary Jane Watson for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 but whose role was in due course cut, would return for the third movie.
Plot: What Was The Amazing Spider-Man 3 All About?
Norman Osborn is the name mostly associated with the alter ego Green Goblin, and even though others have adopted the mantle he is typically the first. Nonetheless, the Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was Norman's son, Harry who in the comics becomes the second Green Goblin after his father. After the death of Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy at the hands of the Green Goblin, The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was planned to focus on Garfield's Peter Parker as he struggled quite a lot to recover and move on.
Webb shared with Den of Geek that Norman Osborn was actually planned to be the main villain. Norman Osborn died in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 from a strange illness that was genetic and also affected Harry. Harry tried to cure himself with Oscorp's spider venom which in turn accelerated his disease and transformed him into the Green Goblin.
Conducive to Norman to return, he would have been revived in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 as the new Goblin. The Amazing Spider-Man movies treated Oscorp as a supervillain factory, with all villains in that universe being born from an incident at Oscorp. Whilst Rhino did not become a lizard or fall into a vat of electric eels, he was broken out of prison and given a mechanical suit by Oscorp.
Very Poor Performance of The Amazing Spider-Man 2
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released in 2014, the same year Captain America was released: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was among the lowest-grossing of the films, failing to cross the first Amazing Spider-Man film at the box office. The movie also became the lowest-grossing Spider-Man movie at the time of its release, opening to $91 million which was a long haul from the record-breaking opening weekends of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3.
The highest-grossing Spider-Man movie is currently Spider-Man: No Way Home which has grossed over $1.9 billion amidst a pandemic. For comparison, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ended its box-office run around $709 million. Whilst that number still indicates a very financially victorious film, it did not perform to Sony's expectations and was a reason in the decision behind the series' cancelation.
The box office poor performance of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had Sony readjust their plans. They originally had The Amazing Spider-Man 3 set for release on the June 19th 2016, but the film was then taken off the schedule. In place of that, Sinister Six would come out between The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and The Amazing Spider-Man 3, with Sinister Six set for release on November 11th 2016. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was then dated for 2018 with The Amazing Spider-Man 4 moved to an unmentioned date.
Aloof Relations Between Sony and Andrew Garfield
In 2014, Sony Pictures was hacked by a squad that demanded Sony Pictures withdraw the release of the Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy, The Interview which was a movie about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which disclosed confidential data. A lot of information was disclosed, but one was a set of emails leaking the poor relations between Sony and Garfield. Information was made public about Garfield's absence from a very important Sony promotional event playing a major role in The Amazing Spider-Man 3's cancelation.
Sony boss Kaz Hirai flew out to Brazil for an important conference where the movie would have been officially announced. Garfield did not appear at the event. According to a report from Cinema Blend, Garfield revealed his absence was due to sickness caused by jetlag. Kaz Hirai was not at all impressed. Garfield's behavior was not appreciated by many Sony execs, who in turn did not feel encouraged enough to continue with the Amazing Spider-Man franchise.
The cancelation of The Amazing Spider-Man 3 also meant the cancelation of all sequels and spin-off movies which consisted both Amazing Spider-Man sequels, a Black Cat solo movie, and Sinister Six. A Venom spin-off movie was repurposed to exist outside the Amazing Spider-Man franchise and was released in 2018.
Spider-Man Part Ways With Sony For the MCU
The emails also disclosed that Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios had reached out to Sony Pictures and Amy Pascal about teaming up to bring Spider-Man into the MCU, but, Marvel Studios wished for a clean slate. With their Amazing Spider-Man franchise dropped, and the character's brand harmed due to the poor critical and box office reaction to both The Amazing Spider-Man movies, Sony Pictures finally struck a deal with Marvel Studios, and on February 10th, 2015, less than even a year following The Amazing Spider-Man 2 open, it was assured that an all-new Spider-Man would join the MCU.
Garfield would later on reappear as Spider-Man in No Way Home, seven years after he last played the role. With the movie’s success and the fact that Sony Pictures has revived their own cinematic universe using Spider-Man characters (with Venom, Morbius, it might be a good idea for Sony to reveal those films are part of the Amazing Spider-Man universe and allow Andrew Garfield to comeback as Spider-Man and continue that franchise's story.
