The only reason any studio makes a movie ever, is to make money. And often times the way to bring people in is to make a movie that doesn't suck. And the reason they are taking it back to high school is because the character started off in high school, and this is a reboot. Plus Ulitmate Spider-Man was extremely successful and they are drawing on it for this film.
Ultimate has only been moderately successful and that was quite a long time ago. At it's best it never sold at the level that Spidey did when it was selling fairly well back in the 80's and 90's. And he started off in High School in Raimi's films. But he was moved out of high for the same reason that he was in the comics that
really were succesful. The character needs to evolve. He can't be a superhero while being under parental supervision. He needs to have adult relationships.
And BTW- the Twilight films do suck. But they make money for the same reason whatever tone-deaf flavor of the month teen singer does. Teenagers are gullible and spend money for teen-targeted crap. So these films are just going to be more teen-cheese whiz directed at cheeze-heads. Thus why they're being made on the cheap. Lots of teenage angst BS and little of the high octane throwdowns with villains that Raimi gave us.
The over the top humor and childish antics made Spider-Man often feel unrealistic. And too many of the scenes in the film were just fluff. They didn't further the story at all. Like "The Daily Bugle! It's hip! It's wow! It's now! And how?" That's pure fluff. The Dark Knight had none of that. It was 100% story and character driven.
The DarK Knight had none of that?
The Joker in a Nurse's uniform.
The Joker walking away tra-la-la while a hospital complex explodes behind him. His wacking the detonator to get it to finish igniting the bombs.
"I'm supposed to kill the bus driver" And the bus magically and silently appears and kills the henchman.
The Joker burning hundreds of millions of dollars while his
mercenaries stand idly by, instead of blowing him away and trying to grab it for themselves.
Bruce Wayne figuring Gotham was safe in Dent's care since he'd put away a slew of mobsters, even though the only reason Dent could put them away was because of Batman's efforts.
Batman- a crazed-vigilante- kidnapping a very prominent and very rich Chinese citizen and there not being a GIGANTIC international incident.
Two-Face magically escaping from the mobster's moving car.
Batman figuring that a city- that's used to corrupt politicians- will fall apart if Dent is exposed for the Two-Face murders.
I could go on and on. TDK was fun. Heath was great. But not a great film by any means. And certainly not realistic by any stretch of the imagination.
But there's a reason they went back and said he was 15 all along. It makes it more interesting. Bendis made him 15 and it works really well. The Spectacular Spider-Man made him 15 and it worked really well. Which is why it was so cool when this skinny little 15 year old was beating up adult villains. Look at it this way. There have been more high school Spider-Man stories told than college ones, yet we had him in college for all three films. The college thing was what was wearing thin.
If the stories are good, it doesn't matter where he is. And in the comics Peter was in College for nearly 25 years. This period encompassing multiple titles including Amazing, Spectacular, Web, Marvel Team-up, etc. So no, there weren't more stories written about him in High School.
And his being 15 doesn't make it more interesting, it makes it less believable. Especially in things like the cartoon, where he's written to be an idiot much of the time. And the teen-angst garbage shown in that show is the very reason iI don't want to see it in the films. All of the characters in that show are annoying. In the films, MJ was bad enough. But this threatens to be an entire cast of MJs. If they have to reboot, I want to see an actual improvement, not a step-backward to make a fast grab for cash.