‘Spider-Man 3’ Movie Release Date, Cast Rumors & News: Andrew Garfield to be Fired?

Comic book fans have always been aware that Spider-Man is part of the original Avengers. However, due to distribution rights, Andrew Garfield's webbed hero is under Sony, while the rest of the Avengers are under Disney. With the recent hacking that sent Sony Pictures morale reeling, the company has dug themselves into a hole as far as the Spider-Man franchise is concerned.

According to Movie Pilot, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" producer Avi Arad and the rest of the executives from Sony wanted to compete with the Marvel cinematic universe by turning the films into even bigger productions and putting character arcs to introduce the next set of villains for "The Sinister Six."

Unfortunately, this did not work out quite well, making the film the lowest-grossing movie in the Spider-Man franchise so far. The chaotic mess that came from over abundance of villains and the death of a fan-favorite led to a mess of a sequel, and it showed poor business decisions on Sony's part.

The rest of the plans that included an all-female Spider-Man film, an Aunt May story, and the possibility of releasing "The Sinister Six" before "The Amazing Spider-Man 3" baffled and infuriated fans, especially when the film of all-villains and no Spidey came up.

Because of the mess, Marvel Studios put it in themselves to try salvaging what was left of Spider-Man. Leaked emails noted that Marvel is going to make a deal with Sony to add Spidey to "Captain America 3: Civil War" and despite Sony's insistence on keeping creative control, Marvel will have none of it.

The plan looks solid, but it does have one big cache: if Marvel will gain control with Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield will have to hang up his costume, and his and Tobey Maguire's version would no longer be part of the cannon.

This could mean they're starting Spider-Man over with a clean slate. Latino Review said that Marvel does not want to deal with the "baggage" that Garfield will bring when he starred as Peter Parker. That's not to say Garfield did not do well as the web-slinging hero.

According to Screen Rant, his performance has been cited as a strong element in the recent Spider-Man films, but with Marvel's cinematic universe inter-connected storytelling, having Garfield with the Avengers will cause confusion, especially to non-comic book enthusiasts.

And because Spider-Man's origins have been covered by both Tobey Maguire's and Andrew Garfield's characters, Marvel could skip it altogether and will jump right into Peter Parker's double identity life. The alleged release date is sometime in 2018, as we previously reported.

What do you think is going to happen to Spider-Man?