As we told you earlier, Sony is starting to get jittery over being in the Spider-Man business. But apparently they’re getting so jittery that even the reported delay of The Amazing Spider-Man 3 to 2017 might be a little optimistic.
Roberto Orci, one of the writers on the franchise, admitted to IGN that he not only wasn’t involved in the movies, but that Sony has no clear idea of what it’s going to do going forward.
“I don’t ever want to say never, but we have to figure out what their scheduling is in terms of when they want each movie. There’s a love for the Sinister Six, the idea of Venom — there’s an idea of Spider-Man’s going to be one of these characters that’s part of our business. He’s such a popular character. Spider-Man’s not going to go away any time soon. When it all happens and how and all that has yet to be determined.”
There’s good reason for Sony to be reconsidering the further adventures of Peter Parker. Simply put, there’s a very clear downward trend for the Spider-Man movies, with each movie making less than the last, both worldwide and at the domestic box office. And, in fact, the trend is accelerating, to boot.
Part of this is more or less that the quality of the movies has been declining, but in truth, we live in a world where a universally disliked and mocked series like Transformers can still make money despite being terrible. Sony probably didn’t think quality mattered, and now they’re paying the price.
Sony will probably try to make another Spider-Man movie happen at some point; if they don’t, they have to give the rights back to Disney. Furthermore, Sony doesn’t have any other franchise, which is why there’s suddenly so much forward motion around turning modern games into movies at the studio. So don’t be surprised if the grand plans Sony has for the franchise don’t pan out.