This is What the Amazing Spider-Man 3 Was Going to be About

If you’re reading this article, you’re probably pretty aware of the struggles Sony has had with their all-important property, Spider-Man. With Tom Holland set to appear in next year’s Avengers: Infinity War, some people are still wondering what Sony was planning beyond Amazing Spider-Man 2.

The director of the Amazing Spider-Man films, the aptly named Marc Webb, had this to say about the plot for Amazing Spider-Man 3:

Yeah, we were talking about the Sinister Six. They were going to make a Sinister Six movie before we did the third one. But I wanted… 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. But it was a fun exercise. I look back very fondly on those days.

Obviously the main complaint about the Amazing Spider-Man 2 was that they attempted to force the Sinister Six plot in the middle of a film that already had a lot going on. An after credits scene — not shown in theaters but leaked online — indeed revealed that Chris Cooper’s Norman Osborn had his head frozen after dying from some sort of genetic disease.

Meanwhile, the post-credits scene from the first Amazing Spider-Man showed a mysterious man, confirmed as the Gentleman, visiting the Lizard in jail. He also visited Harry Osborn at the end of Amazing Spider-Man 2. He was Norman Osborn’s right hand man assembling a team.

Alas, those reboots weren’t very well-received, especially the Amazing Spider-Man 2 — which attempted to set up a Spider-Verse while cramming the death of Gwen Stacy in the middle. Because that movie made less than Amazing Spider-Man — which made a lot less than the original three Spider-Man films — Sony had a conundrum on their hands. They agreed to lease the character out to Marvel Studios, in the hopes their perfect track record would resurrect the character’s appeal to moviegoers.

While the result — Spider-Man: Homecoming — has been well-received by fans and critics, the fact that it’s the second reboot and third iteration of the friendly neighborhood wall crawler means  it’s really not that big of a draw in a market saturated with superhero properties.

Still, Sinister Six may end up on the big screen in the near future after all; the Vulture, Scorpion and Shocker are already scheming revenge in the MCU.

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