Spider-Man: 7 Reasons To Be Worried About Venom & Black Cat Spin-Offs

3. It's A Back-Door Continuation Of The Amazing Spider-Man Films

When Sony initially set out their plans for an extended universe - rather over-confidently, as it turned out - they mentioned a female spin-off (most likely to be Black Cat), a Sinister Six movie and several sequels. There was also talk of a Venom spin-off set in the same universe.

Sinister Six has apparently hit the skids, but it's almost inevitable we'll see some form of it given how much money Suicide Squad made, but it now feels like Sony are simply ploughing ahead with those plans, ignoring the fact that the films they're spinning off from are now dead. It's not like they're spinning off from the MCU, because they've literally said there's no relationship between the two (and "spin-off" requires an establishing logic).

So it now feels like The Amazing Spider-Man still exists, but without Spidey himself, without Andrew Garfield but with all of the same creative baggage. They needed a fresh slate, and this was not the way to do it, because the spectre of those films looms large.