Despite generating more than $700 million at the box office this summer, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 didn’t receive two thumbs up from many fans and critics. Some blame it on the ending. Movieweb reported that screenwriter Roberto Orci has pulled out of The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and is going to write and direct Star Trek 3 instead. With a production schedule in place to release Spider-Man 3 in 2016, SONY is scrambling to develop a strategy for the lucrative but lackluster franchise.
Amazing Spider-Man (1 and 2) director Marc Webb is slated to direct Spider-Man 3 (starring Andrew Garfield again) but Webb won’t be on the set of Spider-Man 4, which, if everything goes well, is to be released in 2018. Instead, Webb will be directing and producing a film based on the yet-to-be published book How to Catch a Russian Spy, written by Newsday journalist and FOX News political analyst Ellis Henican (co-written with an anonymous American double-agent who won’t reveal his identity before publication, early 2015.) Now that’s suspense! Why can’t the Spider-Man franchise produce a plot and promotion like that?
