3. What Is Richard & Mary Parker's Dark Secret? - The Amazing Spider-Man
Aside from being another origin story chronicling the transformation of a science nerd into a science nerd with the powers of an arachnid,
The Amazing Spider-Man seemed to promise us a whole lot more in the lead up to its release - instead of settling to be another re-telling of that infamous origin story that we've already seen a bunch of times, the marketing department kept diverting our attention to Peter Parker's parents and some dark moment from their past that we should apparently all care about this time. It worked: we were all super-intrigued. Look at the picture above, released before the movie came out. Read the text. Mysterious, right? You'd think that at least some of the flick would hinge on this point, right? That - given the fact that the studio were purposely bringing their mysterious past to our attention - it would play a major part in the story, and help to differentiate this reboot from that of Sam Raimi's trilogy.
What the hell is this dark secret? Alas, when the movie actually came out, this thread was nowhere to be seen. There were a few hints, but a "dark secret"? Entirely absent. All right, so the movie was still pretty good anyway, I guess, but what happened here? Why were we misled to believe for so long that this would play a part in the origin story? The - and I quote - "untold story of Peter Parker's parents," according to the people who made this movie. And what about that line in the trailer, courtesy of the Lizard: "You want to know the truth about your parents? Come and get it!" Where was that in the movie, huh? Gone. Erased from existence. And you know what? I'm still dying to know what the hell this is all about.