Amazing Spider-Man Franchise loses Roberto Orci, Timeline for Franchise Movies Up in the Air

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The Amazing Spider-Man franchise is one of Sony’s biggest money-makers. While The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the lowest grossing film of the franchise, it was still considered a box office success since it pulled in over $705 million worldwide. Largely, critics give the film a mediocre rating due to the cluttered script and overabundance of villains (let the record state that I loved the movie anyway). Responsible for this script was writing and producing team Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who were also set to write the third installment of The Amazing Spider-Man series, which in turn would reportedly set up the Venom and Sinister Six spinoffs that we were promised.

Orci and Kurtzman have ‘split their duo,’ however, to free up Orci to script and direct Star Trek 3. Kurtzman remains attached to TASM franchise, but what does this mean for the movie release timeline? The Amazing Spider-Man 3, previously had a release date scheduled for summer of 2016, but the loss of Orci may mean that the project is up in the air. Here’s what Orci had to say about the future of the project:

I don’t know what their plans are for that franchise. I don’t ever want to say never, but we have to figure out what their scheduling is in terms of when they want each movie. I’ve read probably as much as anyone else. There’s a love for the Sinister Six, the idea of Venom — there’s an idea of Spider-Man’s going to be one of these characters that’s part of our business. He’s such a popular character. Spider-Man’s not going to go away any time soon. When it all happens and how and all that has yet to be determined.

That sounds awfully familiar to the kind of chatter we heard about the Spider-Man franchise after Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 just before his big split with Sony. It seems as though Sony is rethinking the future of their Spider-Man movies and spinoffs.

It would be prudent to note that Orci may not be the best source if he’s out of the loop since his amicable split with his writing partner. The strong possibility exists that this is just a minor setback to the TASM movie machine, and we may only see a slight delay in the movie releases. One thing is for sure, this is not the end of Sony’s Spider-Man movie franchise; not by a long shot. Only the future knows what is in store for our beloved wallcrawler!

Now read that last sentence in Stan Lee’s voice.