8 Films That Were Made Solely To Hold Onto Rights

8. The Amazing Spider-Man

Despite being a huge hit Spider-Man 3 was reviled by fans, and despite Sam Raimi working hard on redeeming the series with a planned Spider-Man 4, Sony eventually pulled the plug. It was stated in the agreement between Sony and Marvel they need to make a movie every few years, and they were hardly going to let a cash cow like Spider-Man slink away to a rival studio.

So they decided to reboot, telling yet another origin story of how Peter Parker learned about great responsibly. While hardly terrible there’s a troubling lack of innovation with The Amazing Spider-Man; it covers story beats that were already worn out in the Raimi movies, and the villain’s evil scheme is so generic it’s almost a parody.

Still, the movie was a hit and Sony galloped forwards with the sequel. Unfortunately, they stuffed it with villains and pointless subplots, and it was met with a collective “meh.” Thankfully Sony decided after this they wanted to share their toys after all, and let Marvel use Spidey for the MCU.