What If: The Amazing Spider-Man Tackled The Symbiote?

      Spiderman 3 left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths, the action and effects were there but the story was not, so when I ask: what if The Amazing Spiderman movie franchise dives into the symbiote story, it sparks some curiousness.

       Spiderman 2 set everything in place for a great sequel, a sequel that would involve the symbiote. If only they had followed in the footsteps of the great 90’s animated series and told the saga their way. The second film established John Jameson, the astronaut, as a character and gave us a cliffhanger showing that Harry Osborn would become the next Green Goblin. The sequel had so much potential following what is said to be one of the greatest superhero films of all time, which may have been the problem. In several interviews with the producers of Spidey 3, it was stressed that they “didn’t want to do the whole astronaut thing” and that the symbiote should just be a “it came from outer space” thing and that it needed no real explanation… oh okay…wait, WHAT? The pieces were there, use John Jameson, substitute Sandman’s subplot to focus on telling the true origin of the symbiote and you have a successful third Spidey film and we don’t have a reboot five years later.

What If: There Was A Spider-man 4?

       Like the popular mini-series created by DC and Marvel, I have decided to apply the “What If?” story to some of my articles. Certain subjects such as: what if this movie was successful or this cartoon series expanded to others or if a comic series didn’t get enough credit. For my opening “What If?” article, I have decided to ask the question: what if there was a Spiderman 4?

        Most of you have a pretty easy answer to this question, “it would suck just like Spiderman 3”, or “I guess it would be alright, but not as good as other superhero movies today”. And I completely agree, which is why I’m about to do some history altering. Imagine that Spiderman 3 was a success, that the film didn’t have a lot of redundant scenes, that it didn’t focus so much on the Sandman’s personal problems, that it expanded a little more on the Venom story, and most importantly, that we didn’t see Peter Parker’s “unique” dance skills (it was weird, just weird). So, at this point in my alternate reality, Sam Raimi and the crew are working on a successful sequel to Spiderman 3. The cast has returned and their characters are given a chance to become examined further. In terms of villains, there was much speculation in the early production of this film (this is real by the way) that the Vulture would act as the main adversary for old Web-head, along with a side-story involving Ben Reilly and the Scarlet Spider. The idea was great, introduce a simple villain like the Vulture and don’t go too deep into his origins and personal life, but focus on the main plot involving Spidey and his clone. Jake Gyllenhaal was considered to play Ben Reilly due to the fact that he looks a little like Tobey Maguire and that the two just played brothers in the movie Brothers. This would be bringing back the tale from the comics called The Clone Saga, which involved the investigation as to whether Ben Reilly was the clone of Peter, or if Peter was in fact the clone.