I am part of a select group of comic-book movie fans. I liked Marc Webb’s two Spider-Man movies (gasp!), and was interested in finding out where the storyline was heading. I thought Chris Cooper was primed to create an iconic Norman Osborn, and I thought the OsCorp storyline would have fed beautifully into Kraven the Hunter as a villain in The Amazing Spider-Man 3. Alas, it’s not to be, but Andrew Garfield hinted at some of their process in a recent interview, hinting at what might have been.
Garfield is busy promoting his upcoming drama 99 Homes, but of course has to address a number of Spider-Man questions with the press. (That’s what happens when you used to be Peter Parker, if even for a little while.) When asked by Uproxx about the doomed The Amazing Spider-Man 3, Garfield explained that Peter’s emotional state following the death of Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) was going to directly color part three, stating:
I was actually starting to workshop ideas with Alex Kurtzman, who was going to be writing it. We thought to kind of start from the base level, the foundational level of where have we left Peter and where do we want to see him go and what’s logical. And how do we build upon where we left off with this deep, desperate moment with Gwen? So, yeah, we got to some pretty heavy places, and I was really excited to kind of explore it and be involved on the ground level like that.”
The end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a bit of a rushed affair. Peter was in mourning, having just lost the love of his life. However, in case you forgot, Aunt May (Sally Field) convinced her nephew, Peter (Andrew Garfield), to resume his heroic duties as the Rhino (Paul Giamatti) terrorized Manhattan. While this is somewhat a case of revisionist history, I did believe that allowing Peter to shed his grief and baggage over Gwen and slip back into the Spider-Man costume was too quick, and the sequel could have (should have) ended on a darker, more open-ended tone if New York City had to wonder if the world was done with Spider-Man… or if Spider-Man was done with the world? Then he could have resumed his responsibilities in the third chapter, leaving audiences guessing for a little bit of time.
As Andrew Garfield notes, none of this was meant to be, and Marvel will now preside over the next Spider-Man movie, with Tom Holland in the role. I would love to have notes from Marc Webb about what he wanted in The Amazing Spider-Man 3, but for now, it will remain an unfinished story… one of many in Hollywood’s rocky history.
