With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 scheduled to hit theaters on May 2, 2014, Sony Pictures is already talking about The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and 4 which makes sense, seeing how The Amazing Spider-Man went on to gross $752 million dollars. So with planned release dates for two more films after next year, does Sony want to continue to put Spider-Man against more foes or do they plan on taking the series in a slightly different direction? According to Marc Web, the films director, Sony plans on keeping things fresh by having the 4th film not be  “just a Spider-Man movie.”

Speaking  to Crave Online, Web said:

 Well, I think this was conceived of as a trilogy so there was a defined architecture to the story we were telling and we had sort of a rough outline of what was going to happen. I think [for] the fourth movie, what we’ve discovered is there are so many ancillary characters, that have enormous, cinematic potential that there may be other ways to exploit those characters, in a way that is exciting and fun and worthwhile. It might not just be a Spider-Man movie. 

Web is pointing to how most stories are structured which is a three part act. For that same reason, most films are based on a trilogy and few move beyond that. Web went on:

 You know, what was fun about the comics is that there’s an entire sort of encyclopedia of characters and stories and histories and nuances and idiosyncrasies and off-shoots. I think that that is something that seems to be really successful and has a lot of potential so it’s sort of, as yet, undefined, but intentionally so. 

It still remains unclear exctly as how Web plans on changing the direction of the franchise. Some rumors have suggested that the 4th entry will be about the Sinister Six, led by Doc Oc. While the rest of the super villains has varied, depending on which Spider-Man timeline you’re reading, usual members include  Vulture, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and Sandman. For Sony, while the idea of expanding the universe is ideal, it’s also a very hard task to accomplish, seeing how Sony only owns the rights to Spider-Man and the villains that exist within that core universe. Unlike Disney which now owns Marvel and is able to cross over franchises they poses and Spider-Man is not one of them, Sony can only do the same if they own the rights to them as well.

This means that no Avengers or Wolverine in the Spidy universe anytime soon. However, with over 60 years of content to draw upon, Sony can still take the Spider-Man series far. Lets also not forget about the amazing potentials with Venom and Carnage which again, depending on which series you’re reading, has had Spider-Man team up with Venom in order to battle Carnage. That would most certainly fit the bill of not just having Spider-Man as the central character.

Discuss:

How would you like see the world expand in The Amazing Spider-Man 4?