The Amazing Spider-Man 2 director Marc Webb has announced that he won’t be directing the fourth Amazing Spider-Man movie.
This isn’t entirely surprising, considering the director was hesitant to even sign on for the second film, but has confirmed that he’s directing Amazing Spider-Man 3.
The director says he’d “like to be involved as a consultant” for the fourth film, but that he’s “already talked to these guys about it, but in terms of directing it, that will close out my tenure.”
Spider-Man fans may be wondering why Sony is thinking so far ahead with its shiny new franchise, but The Amazing Spider-Man did incredibly well at the box office considering Andrew Garfield was relatively unknown to the majority of audiences prior to his work in The Social Network.
Emma Stone may have actually been the bigger draw the first time around, but they’re both equally sharing their star power on and off the big screen now.
Marc Webb says, “I’ve had so much fun doing it [Amazing Spider-Man], but after the third movie, it’ll be the time to find something else.” Clearly he believes he’ll be ready to move on after the third film.
He followed up saying, “We’re building out a more complicated Spider-Man universe with characters that people haven’t seen in other Spider-Man movies, The Sinister Six, Venom, and more. We’d all love to overlap with other studios, but it’s beyond my pay grade.”
It’s interesting that he brings up overlapping storylines with other studios and then says it’s above his pay grade. Could he be hinting at a possible crossover film between Marvel’s Avengers and Spider-Man – Marvel fans can dream right?
We know that The Sinister Six and Venom films already have writers, but they won’t see theaters until at least 2017. Sony has recently revealed they plan on releasing a Spider-Man based film once a year from here on out.
What might be more interesting is the fact that we could have a fourth Spider-Man film without Marc Webb, Emma Stone or Andrew Garfield. Webb is definitely out and Garfield’s contract is up after Amazing Spider-Man 3.
Emma Stone has been dodging rumors since the beginning that her character will die in either Amazing Spider-Man 2 or 3, which would stay in line with comic-canon. What will Sony do if their three key players are gone when the fourth film rolls out in 2018?
It’ll definitely be interesting to see where the Spider-Man franchise goes after the third film considering Sony will be picking up multiple directors and actors to fill the holes.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see Marc Webb having a Joss Whedon-esq role for the future of Spider-Man’s universe (they do look alike). He’s a talented director and we look forward to seeing what he’ll do outside of The Amazing Spider-Man franchise.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 release date is set for May 2, 2014. Stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone will be returning as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, Jamie Foxx (Electro) will also be in the film, along with Sally Fields, Dane DeHaan, Paul Giamatti, and Colm Feore.