AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 3 pushed back to 2018, SINISTER SIX dated for 2016

Spider-Man definitely does whatever a spider can, but unfortunately for him one thing a spider can also do is get squashed. Due to last minute script changes in the first film and trying to put the proverbial horse before the cart (and seemingly not having learnt a single lesson from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3), Sony trumped up The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as some sort of universe-expanding uber sequel, which they were sure was going to easily make a billion dollars, and would immediately kick off at least two more sequels and several spinoff projects including the villain centric Sinister Six and Venom.

Instead, what they got was a long-winded mess, that may have had it’s good points, but was also stuffed to the brim with underdeveloped characters and under-cooked ideas, resulting in the worst reviewed Spider-Man film since that pilot TV-movie in the 1970’s, and which was also about $300 million dollars short of their estimates.

That already set off a few warning lights, but the writing was really on the wallcrawler when scribe Roberto Orci recently revealed that he was no longer involved with The Amazing Spider-Man 3, and that he didn’t know what the status of the other projects were. Some of the producers were even saying that the future of the franchise was “up for grabs”. All of this meant that Sony needed to go back and have themselves a long think on how to go forward with a franchise that audiences have just not responded to as favourably as they had hoped. And they appear to have come up with a plan.

According to Variety, Sony has now delayed The Amazing Spider-Man 3 by two years from its original 2016 release date to 2018, which was when The Amazing Spider-Man 4 was supposed to drop. That fourquel is no longer anywhere to be found on Sony’s lineup, but spinoff Sinister Six has now been pushed forward to November 11, 2016, which is probably when TASM 3 would have hit.

Written and directed by Drew Goddard (Cabin In The Woods, Cloverfield, Alias), Sinister Six would focus on a half dozen of Spidey’s most iconic villains (three of which were already seen in TASM2) teaming up to form a villainous super-team. Just how their story would play out in a feature film is still being kept under wraps, but they will now be leading into TASM3 and not the other way around as previously planned. This will not only give audiences a breather from some Spider-Man fatigue, but also expand the universe and set up the conflict between Spidey and his foes much more naturally than trying to cram it all into one movie.

So what do you guys think? Is this a better approach? Would you have preferred if they just took a break from everything Spider-Man for a few years? Or don’t you care about that and just want to know where your Venom movie is?

Last Updated: July 24, 2014