Spider-Man fans will never forgive Sony for not giving them The Amazing Spider-Man 3 with Andrew Garfield. Back when the franchise was rebooted, pretty much everyone agreed that it was a little too soon to revamp the character. But when the time came to watch The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012, a huge slate of fans agreed that Garfield was worthy of the spider-suit, and they were ready for more. Unfortunately, we only got one sequel, but you’ll be able to go back to them and re-watch since both entries are now available to stream at Peacock.
The Amazing Spider-Man retold the story of Peter Parker (Garfield) with some slight alterations. The screenplay by James Vanderbilt (Murder Mystery 2), Alvin Sargent (Spider-Man 3), and Steve Kloves (Harry Potter film series) kept the canon event of Peter losing his uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) but included Peter’s parents in the story. His first villain is the Lizard (Rhys Ifans), and it seems that pretty much everyone discovers that he’s Spider-man. The cast is also pretty great, and also features Emma Stone (Poor Things), Irrfan Khan (Jurassic World), Denis Leary (Rescue Me), and Sally Field (80 For Brady).
The sequel was released just two years later, and put Peter against Electro (Jamie Foxx), who later returned to the Spider-Man franchise with Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Both entries of The Amazing Spider-Man had pretty decent runs in theaters all over the world: The two movies combined raked in over 1.4 billion at the box office. That’s why Sony had already set The Amazing Spider-Man 3 for 2016 and The Amazing Spider-Man 4 for 2018, but then backed out of the idea when they negotiated with Marvel Studios to re-introduce the character to the MCU in Captain America: Civil War with Tom Holland. And things weren’t helped after a bit of behind-the-scenes drama at Sony.
A Lot of People Loved ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’… but Not Everyone
The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had a decent reception among critics. The first entry was welcomed with open arms and landed a 71% approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes. The second installment, however, was not everyone’s cup of tea. With a 50% score, critics like The Atlantic‘s David Sims wrote that the sequel felt “overstuffed” with “so many future films and spin-offs to set up.” What made it worse is that none of the set-ups were followed up.
Even though not getting two additional Amazing Spider-Man movies is a bummer, Spider-man fans can hardly complain. The character has never been more alive: The new iteration of the web-slinger starring Tom Holland is already venturing into its fourth installment, the highly-rated Spider-Verse animated film series is on track to debut its third and final installment, and just last week, Disney+ debuted a new animated series titled Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
You can stream The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on Peacock.
