It looks as though Spider-Man is about to undergo one heck of a cinematic transformation. Yesterday, it was suggested that he will join Marvel’s Cinematic Universe by becoming one of The Avengers , while it’s now been rumored that he will actually stay solely at Sony, and the studio is planning on recasting Andrew Garfield in the role.
While Sony’s plan to share Spider-Man with Marvel in order to boost their own franchises hasn’t been completely dismissed, BadAss Digest have now reported that it’s actually just one of three options currently being considered, with the other being that Sony might put Spider-Man on the shelf for around half a decade.
“Sony is going to soft reboot Spider-Man with The Sinister Six , having a new actor playing Spidey who works with the villains The Dirty Dozen style to take down a large threat.”
“Sony is going to put Spider-Man on the shelf for four or five years and see if they can develop any of the side character into their own franchises.”
As The Inquisitr reported yesterday, this comes just a day after it emerged, courtesy of Drew McWeeny’s HitFix, that Sony was looking to “refocus their enormously important franchise while also opening up some connections in the onscreen Marvel movie universe that would blow fandom’s minds.”
At the moment, it’s impossible to know which rumor to believe, but it all makes pretty grim reading for Andrew Garfield, who has played Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
If they are looking to keep Spider-Man in the cinematic abyss for the next few years, his return would coincide with the planned release of The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2018. But with so many years having passed, you would imagine that Sony would then want to inject some new energy into the franchise for his comeback. Especially, since The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was only met with mixed reviews and an adequate box-office sum when it was released in the summer.
Of course, each of these stories might actually just be false, and Sony could still be planning to release The Sinister Six in 2016 as originally planned, with Garfield’s third installment following two years later. Either way, it seems as though Venom , which was previously announced in December 2013, is now dead.
How do you want Sony to proceed? Do you want Garfield to continue in the part? Should he be re-cast? Should Peter Parker join up with Marvel’s The Avengers?
[Images via bwallpapers.com and Comics Authority Blog]