Hey, remember when we said Amazing Spider-Man 3 was becoming a more and more remote possibility? Well, scratch that. Now it might actually be dead.
Why do we say this? Well, Alex Kurtzman took to Collider to talk about his Universal Movie Monster crossover project, which is nothing like Van Helsing so just shaddap, and they spent most of the interview quizzing him about Spider-Man. And Kurtzman had quite literally nothing to say. Seriously, here are his responses to the questions in blockquotes:
It’s still in conversation. Everybody is still figuring it out.
It’s all up for grabs, right now. We’re just trying to figure it out.
Anything is possible. We are always looking for opportunities like that. I can’t say a whole lot about it, but I wouldn’t rule anything out.
Possibly, sure.
Everything is still on the table, right now. Because it’s a universe outside of the Spider-Man universe, even though it’s connected to it, those movies have to stand on their own. So, we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes.
Keep in mind, Kurtzman’s job is write this movie, and then write and direct Venom. That he’s just announced that he’s taking on a major new film crossover project, and is more or less saying that he has no idea what’s happening on the other major crossover project he is theoretically anchoring, makes for some pretty easy lines to read between.
According to Badass Digest, part of the problem is that Marc Webb is fighting Avi Arad and losing at every turn, which… yeah, that’s fairly credible. The second movie was not one filled with confidence in its ideas from a director allowed to stretch his limbs and try some new things.
As we noted before, Sony has to keep making Spidey movies, or Marvel gets the rights back. That puts Sony between a rock and a hard place: Spider-Man is their only major summer franchise, and, yet, every single movie, the total gross just keeps sinking. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has topped out at about $705 million, which is a franchise low even if you don’t factor in inflation. And now they’re going to start pumping them out every year?
Realistically, Sony has done better this summer with movies like 22 Jump Street and Think Like A Man Too. So, expect one of two things to happen: Sony cuts a deal with Marvel and puts Spidey back in the fold… or yet another reboot.