The 'Amazing Spider-man 3' Story We (Thankfully) Never Got to See

New details arise about the script that was (thankfully) never produced.

Story by Matt Cummings

When Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios/Disney agreed this year to co-produce future Spider-Man films and (finally) bring Peter Parker into the MCU, it did two important things, one of which was only recently revealed. Sure, the agreement allows Ol' Webhead to enter the MCU at the right time - 2018/2019's Infinity War as well as a possible role in 2016's Captain America: Civil War - but another reason has only recently rose to the surface.

On Monday, MTV and IGN released interviews from two former stars of The Amazing Spider-man series: Actor Dennis Leary and Director Marc Webb. When asked separately about his experience on set, Leary, who played Captain George Stacy, stunned audiences with the following.

"I was disappointed because I’m totally selfish and greedy. I came back briefly in two and possibly in [The Amazing Spider-Man] 3, there was this idea at one point that Spider-Man would be able to take this formula and regenerate the people in his life that had died. So, there was this discussion that Captain Stacy would come back even bigger in episode 3. So I was like, lets go!"

One can only guess that the people Parker could 'regenerate' would include Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy, but where would that have placed Parker's father, who showed up in a deleted scene on the Blu-ray? To be fair, characters in the comics always return, usually with the most ridiculous backstories possible (a mindless Thanos is resurrected by a radical religious cult, Ben Grimm's religious rebirth). But it's unlikely that anyone would have enjoyed seeing a resurrected cast whose finality is as important to the Spider-man universe as any set of deaths ever told.

While pimping his newest television project, Webb spoke for the first time about his unceremonious departure from the the Spider-Man universe:

“I’m really psyched that Spider-Man is going back to the Marvel universe, I’m really excited to see that incarnation. And Jon Watts is directing it, I knew him from the old music video days and he’d done some really fantastic music videos so it’s really exciting. It’s sad a little bit to surrender that in a way, but it’s as it must be I guess. I think there’s a huge capacity for reinvention of the realm of the Spider-Man universe… there’s a lot of different way so interpret that character… so I’m curious to see how that evolves.”

This is why the Marc Webb series ultimately failed: while he got the costume and Parker absolutely right, its story had become too dense, felt too much like a set-up series, and was beginning to enter that comic-book realm that fans probably didn't want to see. More importantly, these sorts of plot points aren't what Spider-man is about. He's a vigilante to some, a hero to others, a character who wrestles with his inner voice while defeating metahumans. Yet another re-creation of the character was probably not what fans want to see, and the idea of a resurrected family would have certainly flown in the face of audience expectation.

To be fair, no script had actually been written as Leary was shooting his ASM2 scenes. Perhaps that aspect would have been dropped as we neared production, but it certainly feels like fans dodged a huge bullet for a series that in hindsight should never have been attempted.

Marvel Studio’s Spider-Man movie will sling into theaters on July 28th, 2017. Captain America: Civil War will be unleashed on May 6, 2016.

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