10 Ways Sony Could Have Saved The Spider-Man Franchise Without Marvel

10. Made A Different Deal With Marvel Studios

Was it really necessary to reboot the franchise again? The Amazing Spider-Man was fairly well-received, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 53% from critics and 67% from moviegoers, a sign that, if nothing else, the sequel wasn't just an outright flop. The term 'soft reboot' refers to a movie like The Incredible Hulk, connected to the one which came before, but which makes no real reference to previous events and sometimes even has a new cast. In the case of The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, all they really needed to do was just move on from the events of the first two movies by picking up with Peter Parker a few years down the line in his life. Skip college and have him working somewhere like Horizon Labs and already in a relationship with Mary Jane Watson, with maybe just the odd reference to Gwen Stacy (the anniversary of her death, perhaps). With a new creative team behind the scenes, this could have been a fresh start for Spidey without rebooting and without entirely disregarding the events of the first two movies. Instead, it would have just helped the franchise move on. Aunt May could have been eliminated entirely - she's on a cruise with MJ's Aunt Anna - and a new villain like Mysterio or The Vulture could have been introduced to help take things back to basics. Want to spice things up? Throw in the Black Cat for good measure.