Apparently producer Avi Arad isn't a big fan of baking his cake then eating it, nor making his bed before lying in it. As we all know by now,the July 2012 opening The Amazing Spider-Man is a reboot for a popular film franchise that didn't really need rebooting, what with the Tobey Maguire trilogy culminating a mere three years ago. But Hollywood big-wigs, always keen to spot a money-making opportunity in even the dourest of situations, saw further potential in Spidey aside from what they deemed were unnecessary $20 million each paychecks for Dunst, Maguire & Raimi and once the poorly-received with critics & fans Spider-Man 3 hit, they took a commercial and not creatively minded decision to reboot. Enter The Amazing Spider-Man. According to Avi Arad, speaking to EW, The Amazing Spider-Man isn't a 'full-on reboot', nor is it a 'comeback', it is simply a continuation of the series that is going to 'tell stories you didn't see in movies 1, 2 and 3.' So what does this mean? Well, if you are being optimistic about this whole debacle, then it means that TASM is going to be a half-prequel, half-sequel, alternate-universe spin-off from Sam Raimi's initial trilogy. However, if you are a pessimist (you're a film buff, so the smart money says that you are), Avi Arad's statement means absolutely bugger all, a collection of vacuous words formed into a vapid sentence, bumbling out of the arse crack of a man attempting to justify stealing YOUR hard-earned money in the name of a Marvel icon. You hate it, I hate it, but we'll both end up throwing our money behind the Cineworld cash desk anyway because we're inherently gullible hypocrites. Or to put it kinder... we can't help ourselves. The simple truth is The Amazing Spider-Man is a reboot of the saga, just as much as Casino Royale and Batman Begins was to their respective franchises. They may be doing their best to tippy-toe continuity problems by writing out Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osbourne and J Jonah Jameson from this next adventure but don't be fooled by Ari trying to call this Spider-Man 2.5 (i.e. in between events of film 2 and 3) because it ain't.