‘The Amazing Spider-Man 3′ May Not Arrive Until 2017
With 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' underperforming at the box office, Sony may not be able to keep with their current timeline for sequels, and word is that 'The Amazing Spider-Man 3' is being pushed off of its June 10, 2016 release date and in to 2017.
Ain't It Cool casually dropped this information, and it's going to be interesting if it pans out. Sony unveiled an aggressive 'Spider-Man' schedule with a third film due in 2016, a fourth (that both director Marc Webb and star Andrew Garfield have said they aren't signed on for) due in 2018, and with spinoff films 'The Sinister Six' from writer/director Drew Goddard and 'Venom' from writer/director Alex Kurtzman not only in the works, but rumored to come out before the fourth film. But if 'Amazing Spider-Man 3' moves out of 2016, it may put their schedule in disarray. Likely they may push up one of these titles, and with Drew Goddard bowing out of the upcoming Netflix 'Daredevil' series, it seems likely that 'Sinister Six' would be the next film at bat. The other option is a little more nuclear -- it would require them to start over.
It seems likely that this move is true as every Spider-Man film since the first Sam Raimi film in 2002 has made less money than the film before. The Raimi trilogy were relatively tightly grouped fiscally (the first made $403 million, the second made $373 million, and the third $336 million), while the rebooted 'Amazing Spider-Man' made $262 and also had the benefit of Imax and 3D inflated grosses, which means it sold about half as many tickets as the first Raimi film.
There was hope that the first film didn't do as well because audiences weren't comfortable with such a recent rebooting of a successful franchise, and that people might warm up to the second film, but with 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' currently struggling to cross the $200 million mark, the box office trajectory suggests that the next film in the franchise -- at least without some serious goosing -- would make somewhere in the $150 million range domestically. And as these films cost somewhere between $200 million to $300 million to make, that would be a disaster. Some franchises grow internationally, but the reboot series has flatlined at around half a billion outside of the states. Those may sound like good numbers, but Sony suggested before release that they thought this latest film would make around a billion dollars worldwide, and as this film is currently at $700 million (and running out of steam), being three hundred million short of that goal suggests either they've overrated the property, or that they are going to lose money.
Considering the profit potential of this franchise (though both 'Blade' and 'X-Men' prefigured it, 'Spider-Man' showed the box office potential of comic book movies as it was the first film to ever make over a hundred million dollars in its opening weekend), it's hard to image Sony not wanting to continue, but to do so, they're going to have to figure out how to make the character interesting again to the mainstream. We could very well see a reboot of a reboot. But we may also hear that Sony is taking this in stride and sticks to their original release date.