While, ideally, I can understand the thought-process behind a clean slate for Spider-Man's entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I think that it makes really poor business sense. People can say what they want about the reboot but the biggest problem it had was that it was only five years after the last film starring an actor that a lot of people liked. It doesn't matter that Spider-Man 3 was sub par (much like what people think of The Amazing Spider-Man 2), people wanted to see a continuation. If we look at the Rotten Tomatoes FAN scores of Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, we will see that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is generally liked more, edging out the fan score by 16%. And, while The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn't the financial hit Sony had needed it to be, it would've been a modest success if they hadn't shoved so many trailers and TV Spots down our throats. The biggest problem is that Sony has been trying to fight the trend that every subsequent Spider-Man film has made less domestically than the last one and it wasn't going to work using their marketing platform. And, honestly, they needed a The Dark Knight level or X-Men: Days of Future Past level reception to boost it and they had too many cooks in the kitchen. However, there are many redeemable factors about the franchise that would be wasted should it be rebooted.
Andrew Garfield is a marvelous actor. Even the critics (the professional ones at least) admit that Garfield is a clear highlight for the new Spider-Man franchise. He brings out, on screen, the Peter Parker that he was told to make. Now, if you dislike the Peter Parker he portrays, that would be an issue with the writer and director but Andrew Garfield embodies the role the same way Robert Downey Jr. does and Chris Pratt does. I think it would be a mistake to waste such talent because we want to get a new, fresher face into the role (which, to me, is a mistake on its own because of the fiscal irresponsibility). For a franchise known for recruiting talent, there isn't many more talented young men than Garfield.
Another thing is that we want to bring Peter Parker back to high school. However, we've seen Peter Parker in high school a lot and many of the fans would prefer that we move past the tired setting of high school. Well, college is a pretty unique setting for the character and would allow for more stories to be told in a more adult world for Peter. It also helps keep Garfield looking youthful enough to portray the character. Plus,
Marvel wants to avoid another origin story. Well, we have a Spider-Man ready that already has his origin story told. Check, check and double check. If they want to also avoid a love story, Peter, given the events of the last film, has a pretty good reason for avoiding his love life right now which gives them what they want there as well. Pretty much everything about the state of the character he has been left in is exactly what
Marvel hopes to accomplish by rebooting him.
Perhaps most important of all of these is that there really is no need to reboot to reinvigorate the franchise. It simply takes a good movie (or two). If the last film had utterly destroyed the character himself, then, perhaps, it would be necessary. But I think we can all agree that Peter Parker and his character wasn't among the big problems in that film. It was Electro, Green Goblin (to an extent) and Rhino. I think, unfortunately, we are probably going to have to keep Green Goblin but Rhino and Electro are unimportant enough to fall as much by the wayside as the Lizard did in the latest film. I would argue that Green Goblin really isn't even that terrible, just rushed. If he hadn't been rushed, I would've probably put him past the overrated Loki as a villain. As he sits right now, he is at Ronan the Accuser level, which is pretty sad considering the potential Goblin had. However, much like the franchise Green Goblin can be saved. He just needs to be that loon that he is known to be in the upcoming films in order to reinvigorate the character with that sense of dread. With
Marvel's help, I do believe that the next film can truly be
Captain America: The Winter Soldier levels of awesome. The story could work as a soft reboot, finally refocusing its attention, in a much-needed manner back on Uncle Ben and his killer. Remove all other villains besides Green Goblin. All the supporting cast is gone at this point or hasn't been met in person yet, with the exception of Aunt May (who, also, is in no need of being saved).
Marvel can practically tell any story it wants with this Spider-Man and it keeps it fiscally responsible for the audience who likely wouldn't respond well to yet ANOTHER reboot.
Finally, I have to confront the continuity issues that many people are going to bring up. So, let's start with the obvious, where was Spider-Man during the battle of New York. The answer is simply going to be, in that case, that he wasn't Spider-Man yet. Given the fact that the reboot came out AFTER
The Avengers this one really doesn't need any explanation to the audience. Of course, we have to, then, account for the reference-less script. It makes perfect sense to me: how often did New Yorkers talk about 9/11 in the months after it happened? Probably not a lot. For all intents and purposes, this was another 9/11. The senator's response after the attack in
The Avengers shows Captain Stacy's attitude towards Spider-Man is well-founded and considering Spider-Man would be the first masked vigilante keeping his identity a secret, it would relatively new in that regard but, honestly, very few people seemed shocked that there was a guy with powers and more about what powers he had. This is a very clear distinction to make as it is completely appropriate to be caught off guard by a man in a spider costume as the other design choices by the Avengers had been modest. Okay, okay. So where was S.H.I.E.L.D. during the finale of the original Spider-Man reboot? Simple. The same place it was in the finale of
The Incredible Hulk or
Iron Man 3. Just because S.H.I.E.L.D. was around at that time doesn't mean that it involved itself in every issue. And, honestly, the finale of
The Amazing Spider-Man transpired in a matter of hours. And the only evidence of superhuman activity with the Lizard was a max of half an hour before the final events went down. It is not nearly enough time for S.H.I.E.L.D. to have shown up. Fine. What about
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 though where Times Square was destroyed? Again, this one is pretty simple though it requires digging back in a few pre-release interviews.
In a pre-release interview, when part of the film was screened for the press, Webb had made it very clear that Gwen and Peter hadn't seen each other for a year in between their break-up and the meeting before Times Square. This means that it took place in June of, shall we say, 2014. Well, if
Captain America: The Winter Soldier took place two years after the events of
The Avengers like Scarlett Johansson said then it would've taken place a month or two before the events that unfolded at Times Square. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s collapse predates most of the important events in
The Amazing Spider-Man 2, explaining why Spider-Man isn't approached by any S.H.I.E.L.D. agents following anything: S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone by the time Spider-Man had really made it big time. This, seriously, takes care of all the continuity issues.
Marvel shouldn't have to explain it either because they should probably consider it all self-explanatory given the fact that they have made sure all their films follow each other chronologically following the
Iron Man 2/The Incredible Hulk/Thor fiasco. Now, it would be simple enough to bring Spider-Man into the Civil War fold and have it logically fit within the storyline.
Obviously, this will probably be unpopular as this site is notorious for being on the side of MCU more than pretty much anyone or anything else. However, I would like everyone to be open-minded enough to consider this and to also be coureteous not to slam people in the comments below for having a different opinion. Thanks for reading!