Sequels It's been three strikes now. Why is Sony involved with this franchise?

[Dasher10]

-Personally, I want Sony to keep the rights to Spider-man films mainly because Marvel Studios wouldn't have time to properly handle a Spider-man franchise, much less the possible Venom series Sony is/was planning. What would be great is if Marvel could get involved in the process, with Sony actually making the movie but Marvel Studios functioning as "quality control" in place of Avi and his cohorts.

I'm still a bit iffy on Venom. I feel that he needs Spider-Man as a foil. A standalone Venom film doesn't interest me, nether does a film about the Sinister Six that's anything but a goofy comedy. At least Roberto Orci is gone since he's one of the worst screenwriters in Hollywood.

Also, didn't Orci's departure put Venom on hold? I'm not a fan of Kurtzman either. These two wrote the first two Transformers films and Cowboys ad Aliens wasn't a good movie by any means but Damon Lindlof saved it from being unwatchable. TASM had a decent script but it was often too dark as well as too similar to Raimi's trilogy.

Marc Webb also doesn't have a unique style of his own. Really, all of these factors together are why Marvel needs to get the rights back.

 

[CaptainWagner]

I'm still a bit iffy on Venom. I feel that he needs Spider-Man as a foil. A standalone Venom film doesn't interest me, nether does a film about the Sinister Six that's anything but a goofy comedy. At least Roberto Orci is gone since he's one of the worst screenwriters in Hollywood.

.

-Have you read any of the Agent Venom series? If it's a Brock-Venom film I'd agree with you, but a Flash-Venom film would be terrific.

 

[rayc1971]

amazing spiderman was good but I just watched the sequel and it sucks just as bad as spderman3 to me!too many villans very chopy and cheesy!jaime foxx was horrible actual thought dale dahaan was perfectly cast they spent 255mill on this and it barely made 200mill domestic how much do you think a sinister six film will cost atleasty 300mill they gotta figure something out with this franchise and quick!

 

[Dasher10]

-Have you read any of the Agent Venom series? If it's a Brock-Venom film I'd agree with you, but a Flash-Venom film would be terrific.

Sony confirmed it's going to be Brock. Plus Roberto Orci left which leaves Venom in limbo.

 

[Spider-knight]

david fincher was once on the amazing spiderman before webb took over. hopefully he'll be back. as long as it's a director and writers who are above average, talents, and have won numerous academy award, oscars, and anything good we need some great spidey flicks

 

[Dasher10]

david fincher was once on the amazing spiderman before webb took over. hopefully he'll be back. as long as it's a director and writers who are above average, talents, and have won numerous academy award, oscars, and anything good we need some great spidey flicks

That was when Sony wanted to handle it as a teen romance and try something different with the property. Now the franchise is in limbo by just being another superhero film.

Moreover, where Disney, Fox and Warner have enough characters to explore different properties, Sony only has ONE. Look at the spin-off ideas. One was about the Sinister Six when they've never had their own series until a year ago and quite frankly, it's not a film that I'd be interested in seeing.

Plus, handling either the S6 or Venom in TASM3, then introducing the other in their own film was a recipe for disaster.

Keep in mind that TASM3 was the lowest grossing film in the franchise and based upon the reception of TASM2, Sony is going to have to fight an uphill battle for respect since they're playing with a property that may very well bomb and cost Sony a whole lot of money. The safest choice now would be to sell the rights back to Marvel. The producers would get a guaranteed payday of a few billion with no risk involved.

Look at the X-Men at Fox, they've only produced two bad X-Men films so far. Then they knocked it out of the park with the three since. Three sub-par films back to back is a sign that the franchise has run out of steam. Even among the Bond films, Moonraker was followed up with For Your Eyes Only and Die Another Day was followed by Casino Royale. That's no t counting how Quantum of Solace was followed by Skyfall. The Bond franchise manages to revive itself after each low point. The only exception was Octopussy followed by A View to a Kill. Yes, the Bond series has had five rather awful films but there was never a three film dry streak.

Sony had their chance. Spider-Man is now a joke of a film franchise. The only thing that Sony can do now is sell it back to Disney who can provide a fresh take on the character, preferably as a TV series about Peter Parker and friends that will also dip into his time as Spider-Man and cross over with the other street level heroes. It's about a high school senior struggling with applying to college, his relationship with Gwen and living with his aunt before he graduates and becomes a photographer to pay for college and has to deal with Gwen's death. Less web-swinging and more grounded stories. Something that lets Peter have a rivalry with Ed Brock before he becomes Venom and also have a story where Flash Thompson returns on shore leave with no legs, hears that Peter is still in town and decides to hang out with him, complete with an apology for his previous behavior. That's just for the first two seasons and it already sounds more interesting to me than anything that Sony's done with their reboot. I mean, it's a trilogy about Peter finding out about his parents. NOBODY cares about Peter's parents. People care about his relationship with MJ and his close friendships with Black Cat and Daredevil but Richard and Mary Parker have never mattered in any adaptation before, and they still inspire apathy.

 

[Dasher10]

P.S. If Fox screws up their Fantastic Four reboot, then I want the FF to also revert to Marvel since it'll be three strikes for them as well.

And the only Marvel Studios film that I didn't like was Thor: The Dark World which was still perfectly watchable.

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

In Hollywood, a strike is when a movie bombs financially. Spider-Man 3 made a ton of money in its time, more than the first two movies which were actually liked by critics. It's going to take more for them to lose the film rights to Spider-Man than some internet fanboys complaining about Peter Parker turning emo.

Well then ASM & ASM2 weren't strikes either since they didn't bomb.

They didn't blow up, but they didn't bomb

 

[Dasher10]

Alex Kurtzman just confirmed that Sony has no idea how to proceed and that Venom comes after Sinister Six. Also, there's no word on when TASM3 will be released.

http://collider.com/amazing-spider-man-3-news-venom-sinister-six/

 

[Dr. Thanos]

Alex Kurtzman just confirmed that Sony has no idea how to proceed and that Venom comes after Sinister Six. Also, there's no word on when TASM3 will be released.

http://collider.com/amazing-spider-man-3-news-venom-sinister-six/

This just reveals a huge structural flaw in the franchise to me. How can their business plan be so fragile that when one person leaves, things are shaked up so much? Disney, Fox, WB all have structures so that even when key personnel leave, they can still continue their project. Look at the Edgar Wright situation, for example. But when Orci leaves ASM, Sony loses all focus?

 

[spiderman2]

This just reveals a huge structural flaw in the franchise to me. How can their business plan be so fragile that when one person leaves, things are shaked up so much? Disney, Fox, WB all have structures so that even when key personnel leave, they can still continue their project. Look at the Edgar Wright situation, for example. But when Orci leaves ASM, Sony loses all focus?

That doesn't sound good has you should have a plain on what you are going to do intreams of villains and stores before you start a franchise. That makes me think that asm3 will end up being 2017 and not 2016.

 

[Dasher10]

That doesn't sound good has you should have a plain on what you are going to do intreams of villains and stores before you start a franchise. That makes me think that asm3 will end up being 2017 and not 2016.

If Sony doesn't just sell the franchise back to Marvel. Sony is already developing Uncharted and Infamous films. They own the rights to James Bond, Undeworld, Men in Black and Jump Street. I can't imagine that Sony isn't going to develop a Killzone film at some point. Plus, there's also the Sony Pictures Classic brand for distributing independent films. Sony doesn't need Spider-Man and without knowing where they want to take the franchise, the safest move for the company is to sell the rights back to Disney.

Compare Sony's situation with James Bond where the producers know where they want to take the character next and have a solid, concrete plan. Sony doesn't really know what they're doing with Spider-Man. So why are they still holding on to it? The last time a Sony film based on a property that the studio was leasing from Marvel failed as hard, Ghost Rider was sold back to Marvel for what was likely a very big paycheck.

Look at the state the franchise is in now. TASM was too dark for a Spider-Man film. TASM2 was too cheesy even for Spider-Man. Nobody ever cared about Peter's parents. Norman Osborn is dead. Sony cast Jamie Foxx as Electro, did nothing interesting with him and then killed him off. Felicity Jones was cast as Black Cat but ultimately did nothing over the course of the film. Rhys Ifans no longer wants to be part of the franchise and now the Sinister Six has already been set up as the third film with a full villain lineup which will require Sony to set up four brand new villains + Mary Jane + Peter attending college + have Felecia turn into Black Cat which is even more story to cram into two hours than TASM2 had.

So remind me why I should in any way shape of form anticipate TASM3 when Sony's track record with the franchise has sucked since 2007.

Thor: The Dark World wasn't great neither were X3 and X-Men: Origins but Disney and Fox at least have managed to come back with Captain America: The Winter Soldier and X-Men: First Class.

Plus Kurtzman confirmed that Sinister Six which nobody ever asked for is moving ahead but can't even bother confirming a Black Cat spin-off and now claims that both Sinister Six and Venom are coming after TASM3 which has been delayed to 2017 when it'll be competing with Thor, Wolverine and allegedly Wonder Woman where it'll have to fight an uphill battle for respect against two familiar characters and a brand new franchise.

Batman Begins was able to wash out the taste of the Schumaker movies because it came out in a year where the main competition was a rather lackluster Fantastic Four film and an even worse Elektra film. Man of Steel was able to redeem the franchise after Superman IV and Steel simply by waiting a good long time before rebooting Superman. Even Thor: The Dark World and X-Men 3 weren't as bad as the aforementioned films and remain watchable but not great which meant that X-Men: First Class only really had to get over X-Men Origins and Thor 3 will still have a ton of hype, particularly if Age of Ultron is a hit.

So where does this leave Spider-Man by 2017? With TEN YEARS or poor quality adaptations by the time it sees the light of day. That's not a small hurdle, it's a full decade. Marvel saw the writing on the wall after Thor 2 and allowed the Russos more control in the editing room to avoid the same mistake. Tom Rothman left Fox after X-Men: Origins which put Lauren Schuler Donner in full control of the X-Men franchise which has already given us three solid films.

So now that Sony only actually lost money on TASM off of a $445 million dollar budget with marketing costs included with no merchandise revenue and their half of the ticket sales only totaled a little over $350 million - and unlike Batman, this is three horrible films in a ROW - what are they supposed to do? Are they supposed to charge into an already crowded year against films with more good pre-release press? Are the producers going to sit back and do nothing with the property until the rights are about to expire which may very well be, "too soon" for audiences? Are they going to try to promote TASM2 even more than the last film which will carry an even bigger risk? I can't think of a fourth option here at all. Sony has already lost this battle. They should know when to fold.

 

[Spooderman]

If Sony doesn't just sell the franchise back to Marvel.

Disney is run by greedy bastards, so they won't put a reasonable price for Spider-Man.

 

[Dasher10]

Disney is run by greedy bastards, so they won't put a reasonable price for Spider-Man.

Yeah, and that's why they were able to buy back multiple other properties. Disney would presumably pay a great ton of money to get Sony to stop hurting their brand which actually DOES hurt Disney since they sell the merch, they control the animated rights and they publish the comics. Sony has managed to make Spider-Man IRRELEVANT. Now if they really think that they can delay TASM3 so it'll be three years before it sees release, then rush into two spin-offs then they're out of their minds.

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

The merch sells no matter the movie. It's Spider-Man.

As for those other properties they weren't the same caliber as Spider-Man.

As for hurting the brand well that's subjective, the movie was high-grossing, not high-profit but still high-grossing. The critical reaction mixed and audience mixed too but neither wholly negative like Green Lantern or anything.
Plenty have said that Marvel are doing their best to hurt the Spider-Man brand with the One More Day, the awful cartoon and killing off Peter and replacing him with one of his villians.

 

[Spooderman]

Yeah, and that's why they were able to buy back multiple other properties. Disney would presumably pay a great ton of money to get Sony to stop hurting their brand which actually DOES hurt Disney since they sell the merch, they control the animated rights and they publish the comics. Sony has managed to make Spider-Man IRRELEVANT. Now if they really think that they can delay TASM3 so it'll be three years before it sees release, then rush into two spin-offs then they're out of their minds.

Did they? I'm pretty sure that Daredevil and Punisher were reverted back because they Studio didn't make films. They might have bought back Ghost Rider, although I don't know the details. Namor is still with Universal, and Disney has no plans of getting him back.

Also, do you honestly think that Disney would give out 2 billion dollars for the Spider-Man film rights, when they have all other rights and are making zillions of the MCU?

If Spider-Man is becoming irrelevant, it's because of Disney, since they're the ones making the comics, video games, and cartoons.

 

[Nardz937]

Did they? I'm pretty sure that Daredevil and Punisher were reverted back because they Studio didn't make films. They might have bought back Ghost Rider, although I don't know the details. Namor is still with Universal, and Disney has no plans of getting him back.

Also, do you honestly think that Disney would give out 2 billion dollars for the Spider-Man film rights, when they have all other rights and are making zillions of the MCU?

If Spider-Man is becoming irrelevant, it's because of Disney, since they're the ones making the comics, video games, and cartoons.

I think every form of Spider-Man related material these days aren't very interesting or good, which is why it is such a sad time to be a Spider-Man fan.

Movies- It's been 10 years since the last good one, Spider-Man 2. Spider-Man 3, Amazing Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man 2 all sucked in my opinion. Whose to blame? I'd point the finger to Sony. No doubt in my mind that Spider-Man 3 would have been good if they let Raimi make it the way he wanted and the reboot movies could have been great if they got the right director for the job and gave him creative control. They got Webb because he was a no-name that they could make a yes-man out of. Would Spider-Man movies be good again if they went back to Marvel? There's only one way to find out, but the thing is Avi Arad would still be a part of it. Believe it or not, this guy is a problem who needs to go.

Financially, Spider-Man 3 was the most successful Spider-Man film in the franchise, despite being the worst of the Raimi trilogy quality wise. Possible reasons....

1. Because the first two movies, especially the second was was incredibly loved - so people expected the same out of the third.

2. Venom. The most popular Spider-Man villain of all time. Everybody was excited to finally see him in live action on-screen.

I remember watching Spider-Man 3 at midnight. I was the first guy in line. When the movie started the entire theater shouted in cheers and I'll never forget the dead silence that followed right at the end credits. Utter disappointment from everybody. But word of mouth didn't seem to hurt it.


The main thing that has hurt the Amazing Spider-Man movies is that the majority of the public just weren't ready for a reboot of Spider-Man so fast. The first one, despite me not liking it at all, was received pretty mixed. It was the lowest grossing Spider-Man movie yet when it came out. I believe it was because...

1. The bad taste of Spider-Man 3 was still in peoples mouths.

2. A lot of people just went "Seriously? They're starting over with Spider-Man already? I don't think so"

3. It wasn't that good quality wise.

4. By the fourth movie, the magic of the Spider-Man movies have gone away.


Amazing Spider-Man 2, quality wise it was complete garbage and most people agree and financially it didn't do very well at all. It is now the lowest grossing Spider-Man movie in the franchise to date. Beating it's predecessor.

It made $705,717,432 worldwide, which does seem kinda good. But let's compare to the original Spider-Man movie that came out in 2002, 12 years ago.

Spider-Man (2002) made $821,708,551 worldwide. Now this is back when general ticket prices were much cheaper and there was no more expensive 3D tickets to help boost the numbers, compare that to ASM 2, which had that. This really isn't all that good.

It seems that general lack of interest, lack of hype and lack of magic have really hurt the ASM movies. That and that the second one just looked awful and they gave away so many key things in the trailers (Made Gwen's death obvious, showed off Vulture's wings and Ock's arms and revealed Rhino's appearance) All would have been best left as a surprise.

Now, I don't know about anybody else, but when I showed up on opening day of ASM and ASM 2 the theater was more than half-empty, which is extremely pathetic for Spider-Man. One of the biggest superheroes of all time. The Raimi Spider-Man movies would be sold-out and packed for weeks.

At this rate, I'd be extremely surprised if they go ahead with an Amazing Spider-Man 3. I'm just having a really hard time seeing it happening after the disaster that was Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Comics- As far as this goes, I have a kinda nice little collection of Spidey comics throughout the years. Used to pick em regularly but for me the last straw was the whole One More Day trash they did. Turned me off completely and I haven't gone back to pick up a Spidey comic of any sort since. This combined with the fact that comics in-general have become too expensive and just too hard to keep up with is my main reason for stopping all together.

Games- The last Spider-Man game I played was the SM3 movie game. The Spider-Man 2 movie game and Ultimate Spider-Man are the best Spider-Man games ever made in my opinion. Haven't had too much of an interest in very many since, except Shattered Dimensions, which I just haven't gotten around to playing yet. I've heard a majority since has sucked, including the last one ( the ASM 2 game, though I heard the ASM 1 game was good).

Cartoons- My favorite Spider-Man cartoon is TAS. I even enjoyed the original 60's one. They made a ton since, many I didn't like or care for (Unlimited, MTV CG one,etc) I even didn't like the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon all that much, but I do know a lot of people loved it and even claimed it was the best Spidey cartoon ever. It seemed to be becoming pretty popular but they cancelled it abruptly in favor of an Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, and I don't even know if that show is still going. I watched it once on Netflix and turned it off 2 minutes in. I hated it. It seems like they just can't commit to one series.

Hard to be a Spider-Man fan these days. Constantly find myself going back to things of his past from putting on his old movies to digging through for old comics. Hoping Sony and Disney/Marvel can get it together again someday and return greatness to my favorite superhero

 

[Dasher10]

I think every form of Spider-Man related material these days aren't very interesting or good, which is why it is such a sad time to be a Spider-Man fan.

Movies- It's been 10 years since the last good one, Spider-Man 2. Spider-Man 3, Amazing Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man 2 all sucked in my opinion. Whose to blame? I'd point the finger to Sony. No doubt in my mind that Spider-Man 3 would have been good if they let Raimi make it the way he wanted and the reboot movies could have been great if they got the right director for the job and gave him creative control. They got Webb because he was a no-name that they could make a yes-man out of. Would Spider-Man movies be good again if they went back to Marvel? There's only one way to find out, but the thing is Avi Arad would still be a part of it. Believe it or not, this guy is a problem who needs to go.

Financially, Spider-Man 3 was the most successful Spider-Man film in the franchise, despite being the worst of the Raimi trilogy quality wise. Possible reasons....

1. Because the first two movies, especially the second was was incredibly loved - so people expected the same out of the third.

2. Venom. The most popular Spider-Man villain of all time. Everybody was excited to finally see him in live action on-screen.

I remember watching Spider-Man 3 at midnight. I was the first guy in line. When the movie started the entire theater shouted in cheers and I'll never forget the dead silence that followed right at the end credits. Utter disappointment from everybody. But word of mouth didn't seem to hurt it.


The main thing that has hurt the Amazing Spider-Man movies is that the majority of the public just weren't ready for a reboot of Spider-Man so fast. The first one, despite me not liking it at all, was received pretty mixed. It was the lowest grossing Spider-Man movie yet when it came out. I believe it was because...

1. The bad taste of Spider-Man 3 was still in peoples mouths.

2. A lot of people just went "Seriously? They're starting over with Spider-Man already? I don't think so"

3. It wasn't that good quality wise.

4. By the fourth movie, the magic of the Spider-Man movies have gone away.


Amazing Spider-Man 2, quality wise it was complete garbage and most people agree and financially it didn't do very well at all. It is now the lowest grossing Spider-Man movie in the franchise to date. Beating it's predecessor.

It made $705,717,432 worldwide, which does seem kinda good. But let's compare to the original Spider-Man movie that came out in 2002, 12 years ago.

Spider-Man (2002) made $821,708,551 worldwide. Now this is back when general ticket prices were much cheaper and there was no more expensive 3D tickets to help boost the numbers, compare that to ASM 2, which had that. This really isn't all that good.

It seems that general lack of interest, lack of hype and lack of magic have really hurt the ASM movies. That and that the second one just looked awful and they gave away so many key things in the trailers (Made Gwen's death obvious, showed off Vulture's wings and Ock's arms and revealed Rhino's appearance) All would have been best left as a surprise.

Now, I don't know about anybody else, but when I showed up on opening day of ASM and ASM 2 the theater was more than half-empty, which is extremely pathetic for Spider-Man. One of the biggest superheroes of all time. The Raimi Spider-Man movies would be sold-out and packed for weeks.

At this rate, I'd be extremely surprised if they go ahead with an Amazing Spider-Man 3. I'm just having a really hard time seeing it happening after the disaster that was Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Comics- As far as this goes, I have a kinda nice little collection of Spidey comics throughout the years. Used to pick em regularly but for me the last straw was the whole One More Day trash they did. Turned me off completely and I haven't gone back to pick up a Spidey comic of any sort since. This combined with the fact that comics in-general have become too expensive and just too hard to keep up with is my main reason for stopping all together.

Games- The last Spider-Man game I played was the SM3 movie game. The Spider-Man 2 movie game and Ultimate Spider-Man are the best Spider-Man games ever made in my opinion. Haven't had too much of an interest in very many since, except Shattered Dimensions, which I just haven't gotten around to playing yet. I've heard a majority since has sucked, including the last one ( the ASM 2 game, though I heard the ASM 1 game was good).

Cartoons- My favorite Spider-Man cartoon is TAS. I even enjoyed the original 60's one. They made a ton since, many I didn't like or care for (Unlimited, MTV CG one,etc) I even didn't like the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon all that much, but I do know a lot of people loved it and even claimed it was the best Spidey cartoon ever. It seemed to be becoming pretty popular but they cancelled it abruptly in favor of an Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, and I don't even know if that show is still going. I watched it once on Netflix and turned it off 2 minutes in. I hated it. It seems like they just can't commit to one series.

Hard to be a Spider-Man fan these days. Constantly find myself going back to things of his past from putting on his old movies to digging through for old comics. Hoping Sony and Disney/Marvel can get it together again someday and return greatness to my favorite superhero

Okay, but going ahead with TASM3 as you said would be a BAD idea. The only other options are introducing the Sinister Six as heroes or rebooting immediately if Sony doesn't want the rights to revert. Both of those options based on both empirical evidence and common sense seem to be bad ideas.

As for Marvel, Spectacular Spider-Man belonged to Sony even after the rights reverted. Marvel could not legally continue that series.

Also, One More Day was a low point but Dan Slott's run has been great so far. He inherited a bad situation and made the best of it. Even the whole, "killing Peter" part, now that it's over was pretty great in retrospect. I expect the current "best friend trying to kill him" arc is going to one day actually be looked at as a high point when another writer wants to make Peter and Felecia reconcile. It'll just make their friendship stronger and show that it can withstand anything in the same way that Iron Man has been able to reconcile Avengers 200 with Carol, Planet Hulk with Bruce and Civil War with Steve.

 

[Frodo]

I frankly from a story standpoint Sony has run this franchise into the ground and written themselves into a corner in only 2 films.

A potential option that I would be the idea of a live action series a few years down the line which would be a reboot which could eventually lead into films ala Batman 1966, Veronica Mars and The X Files.

However I don't know if Sony has option of doing a series and even then, I don't know if that legally satisfies Sony's ability to hold onto the rights.