What Could Have Been: Sony's Abandoned Plans for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and a Sinister Six Universe

Andrew Garfield's The Amazing Spider-Man 3 never happened, but Sony's plans went far beyond a single sequel. Before The Amazing Spider-Man 2 failed, the studio was planning a massive Spider-Man Cinematic Universe of its own to compete with Marvel's, with a Sinister Six film led by a revived Norman Osborn, a third Garfield film featuring Venom, and a run of spinoffs.

Garfield's return in No Way Home left many fans wishing Sony had completed its planned trilogy. Here is what that larger universe would have looked like, and why it fell apart.

Sony wanted its own Spider-Man universe to rival the MCU

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of cinema, grossing tens of billions of dollars and elevating comic book heroes into colossal mega franchises. Like anything successful, it did not take long before rivals tried to replicate it. Following the MCU's success, several other studios tried to build cinematic universes of their own, such as the Dark Universe built on Universal's roster of classic movie monsters, the DC Extended Universe and the MonsterVerse, among others.

Sony, after realising it owned the rights to Spider-Man's rich cast of characters and villains, decided to get in on the fad. That meant anyone who enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and was looking forward to its sequel would have had to wait, because the next film in Sony's Spider-Man universe was going to be The Sinister Six.

Norman Osborn's frozen head would have set up the Sinister Six

Leading that group of super villains would have been none other than Norman Osborn. I know Norman died of an incurable illness in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but not exactly. Cut from the film was a scene originally meant to run after the credits, in which the mysterious Gustav Fiers enters a top secret level at Oscorp and walks past several chambers containing gear created for the villains he would recruit in the following movie.

Eventually Fiers would have arrived at a chamber containing the frozen head of Norman Osborn and said, "wake up old friend." While the scene was cut, the container that would have held Norman's head can actually be seen earlier in the film, when a nurse wheels it into his room after he dies.

In an earlier version of that scene, one of the chambers held a suspended ball of black goo that moved around, which would have been the symbiote. It was removed because Sony decided against including Venom in The Sinister Six so that he could have his own standalone film.

Drew Goddard's Sinister Six was a standalone villain epic

Drew Goddard, the filmmaker behind The Cabin in the Woods, was hired to write and direct The Sinister Six. His vision was inspired by films like The Dirty Dozen and Reservoir Dogs, where you root for the protagonists even though they are the villains. Goddard's point was essentially that audiences love watching a bunch of bad characters doing something, and that we should admit it.

Initial reports suggested the film would not feature Spider-Man, but that turned out not to be the case. Goddard later said "it was a Spider-Man movie it was the giant epic Spider-Man movie of my dreams." He also expressed his dislike for how Marvel movies are interconnected and often serve as stepping stones to set up future films and characters. By contrast, he wanted his movie to stand on its own, describing his vision as a summer annual, so that nobody had to worry about continuity: take Peter, put him on an adventure, then put him back in his life.

Goddard's film, which would actually have been a two parter, was apparently bonkers. He wanted to feature the Savage Land, complete with dinosaurs and time travel portals. What excited him most, though, was Sandman, who he thought was going to steal the show. His number one choice to play the character was Tom Hardy, who would eventually go on to play Venom.

Goddard wrote Flint Marko as the anarchic enthusiast of the team, someone who has fun while celebrating being bad. He felt Hardy embodied that anarchy and triumphant nihilism, which we have seen him tap into before in roles like Bronson, but Goddard wanted to crank the volume up to 11. The end of the film would have seen Sandman storm through London, as tall as a skyscraper, like Godzilla.

The Amazing Spider-Man 3 would have brought Venom and a resurrection serum

After The Sinister Six would have come the sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It would have opened with Peter still mourning the death of Gwen Stacy, and the film would focus on his struggle to recover and move on. Just as with Spider-Man 3, Marc Webb was eager to include Venom in his third Spider-Man film, where the symbiote likely would have attached to Spider-Man and amplified his anger and guilt over Gwen's death.

The film would have ended with Peter separating from the symbiote, which would then bond with Eddie Brock, setting up Venom for his own standalone adventure in which he would battle Carnage. There were also discussions about making Flash Thompson Venom instead, inspired by the Agent Venom storyline.

In a bizarre plot point, Peter would have got his hands on a serum that could bring people back from the dead. Part of the discussion was that, possibly in the third film, there was an idea at one point that Spider-Man would be able to take this formula and regenerate the people in his life who had died, and that Captain Stacy would come back even bigger. Not only would Peter use the formula to bring Captain Stacy back to life, he would have brought Gwen back too. The symbiote was also explored as a plot device to make this possible.

In an extension of that idea, Sony also discussed turning Gwen into Carnage. That would have created a scenario where Peter is forced to kill her, but perhaps is able to say goodbye this time, giving him the closure he needs and allowing him to finally move on.

Mary Jane and Richard Parker were saved for the sequel

Cut from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 were two key scenes with characters who would be saved for the sequel. The first would have introduced Mary Jane, played by Shailene Woodley. On cutting her scenes, Webb said "it was very difficult to introduce someone as a competing love interest when so much is on the table with Peter and Gwen." Mary Jane was in only four scenes in the whole film, and with so many new characters already being introduced, it did not make sense to introduce such a vital character from the comic books.

It is interesting to wonder what MJ's role would have been in The Amazing Spider-Man 3, considering Webb was planning to resurrect Gwen. It is rumoured that Aunt May would have encouraged Peter to attend group counselling, where he would meet MJ and the two would bond over their shared trauma. As their relationship developed, Peter would have struggled to open himself up to her after what happened with Gwen.

It is reasonable to assume that once Peter brought Gwen back from the dead, that would have halted his budding relationship with Mary Jane. However, as the film concluded and Peter found closure by bidding farewell to Gwen, he would then take a step forward by asking MJ out, signifying his readiness to move on.

The other notable cut scene featured the return of Peter's father, Richard Parker, who tells Peter he had to disappear to keep him safe, to keep his mistakes from catching up with him and to keep Osborn from hurting him. My assumption is that Webb would have brought Richard back in the third film and dealt with the repercussions of his reappearance, while exploring his nefarious connections to Oscorp and his feud with Osborn. Webb originally wanted to bring Osborn back to life and feature him as the main villain, before plans changed and Goddard was set to revive him for The Sinister Six instead. Felicity Jones, who appeared briefly in the second film as Felicia Hardy and more prominently in deleted scenes, would have seen her role expanded to set up her own Black Cat standalone film.

Venom, Carnage, an Aunt May spy film and Miles Morales were all in the mix

Other films rounding out the universe included a Venom and Carnage film and, according to rumours at the time, an Aunt May spinoff that would have been a cross between Agent Carter and Mad Men, following May's youthful adventures as a spy. Even Sally Field thought that idea was ridiculous.

Garfield was also eager to pass the torch to Miles Morales in the future, so it is likely we would eventually have seen that character take over the franchise.

A Sony executive pitched a five film Phase 1 starting with a Kraven prequel

Following the poor critical reception and underwhelming box office of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony began second guessing its plans. One Sony executive argued that the studio needed to lay out a solid five year plan, both for its own internal clarity and to show fans that Spidey was in safe hands. He called the Aunt May spinoff bizarre and suggested creating a dedicated Spider division that would run as a studio within the studio, so the universe could be properly planned out.

He boldly proposed five films to follow The Amazing Spider-Man 2, acting as the universe's version of Marvel's Phase 1. In a never before seen move, the first would have been a prequel to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with Kraven the Hunter as the villain. Everyone at Sony was a massive fan of the chemistry between Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and felt they had killed her character off far too soon. Executives were also frustrated that the second film took place after graduation, when one of the major reasons for the reboot was to put Peter back in high school and tell stories in that environment to differentiate it from the Raimi films.

A prequel would fix both problems, and would also bring back Norman Osborn, rather than stupidly reanimating his head as had been planned. In this version, an increasingly sick Norman hires a Russian big game hunter named Kraven to track Spider-Man down, believing Peter's blood is the key to curing his disease. Kraven captures Spider-Man and supplies Norman with vials of his blood, and Norman, trying to synthesise a cure, transforms into the Green Goblin. The film would end with Spidey and the Goblin battling it out, the Goblin losing and barely escaping with his life, leading to the frail state we find Norman in during The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

The executive suggested following that with Goddard's Sinister Six, then a Spider-Man 2099 spinoff to serve as the universe's Captain America style franchise. Instead of a World War II period film, it would be set in 2099 as a Miguel O'Hara origin story, ending with Miguel sent back in time to present day New York. Next would come a Venom film covering Eddie Brock's origin and his eventual defeat by Spider-Man, ending with Eddie sent to Rikers and a scene after the credits setting up Carnage. Before that, a Black Cat film would see Felicia Hardy get her luck powers from Kingpin, ending with an encounter with Spider-Man and the realisation that she is not the bad person she appears to be. All of it would culminate in an Avengers style team up of Spidey, Black Cat, Venom and Spider-Man 2099 to take down Carnage.

Why Andrew Garfield did not make the jump to the MCU

Obviously none of this came to fruition. Sony realised, in my view, that it had no idea what it was doing and turned to Marvel for help. As the deal to bring Spider-Man into the MCU was negotiated, it became apparent that Garfield would not be going with him, and the reason may be pettier than you realise, although it was likely the result of a number of factors.

The first was Garfield's failure to show up to a planned press event in Rio, which offended top Sony brass. The then Sony CEO had planned to mention Garfield in his speech and then dine alongside him. Garfield arrived in Rio with a scruffy beard, said he was feeling under the weather and exhausted after coming off the plane, and pulled out an hour before the event, throwing the plans into disarray. Many studio executives were understandably embarrassed by his last minute absence, while the CEO felt personally slighted.

Garfield rubbed the studio the wrong way again by publicly blaming it for meddling with what he felt was a solid script for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. He said he read the script that Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci wrote and generally loved it, but that once portions started being removed, "the thread is broken." He noted that the studio has the final say on tent pole films and said the compromise left him a little heartbroken.

It is also debatable how big a fan Kevin Feige was of Garfield's performance. After viewing a rough cut of the second film, Feige criticised it as too emotional, saying "Andrew's performance is all over the place a lot of crying and then a lot of mania." He also did not seem keen on Webb's characterisation of Peter or the storyline about his father, arguing that the backstory with his super scientist dad fights with the idea that Peter is a normal kid from Queens. Based on those comments, I imagine that when the time came, Feige likely championed rebooting and recasting so they could ditch the Richard Parker storyline, make Peter a regular kid and cast a younger actor to put him back in high school, which is exactly what happened. The thinking behind that version was that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created him in the early 1960s not as a standalone hero, but as a kid with amazing powers doing his best in a world with Iron Man, Thor and Steve Rogers.

Sony's second attempt at a Spider-Man universe got mixed results

With the success of the MCU's Spider-Man, Sony once again felt emboldened to build its own Spider-Man universe, and as of August 2023 the results had been mixed. Venom was a monster hit at the box office, but its sequel did only half the business. Morbius fared even worse, as the film became an internet meme. In a sign of how out of touch Sony's executives were, they returned it to a thousand theatres weeks after its initial run, believing the online attention meant fans genuinely loved it rather than that everyone was making fun of it. On its re release it bombed, and Sony quickly pulled it again.

There was also the forced scene after the credits in which Morbius and the Vulture decide to team up, which used a stand in because Michael Keaton did not show up to film it. I cannot say I blame him.

Maybe there is still hope for Goddard's Sinister Six script. He wrote it as a standalone adventure and has continued to say it could easily slot in anywhere, and Amy Pascal recently said she was ready to make his film whenever he is.

Would you rather have seen Garfield's trilogy finished, or Goddard's Sinister Six finally made?