We continue to hear conflicting reports about plans for Spider-Man 4. Recently, there have been suggestions Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures are butting heads over the movie, with the former wanting a new director (likely Drew Goddard) and the latter keen to bring Jon Watts back into the fold.
Sony is also anxious to get the Spider-Man: No Way Home follow-up into theaters next year, likely with some sort of Multiverse element so they can capitalise on the box office drawing power of three live-action Spider-Men sharing the screen.
Marvel Studios, on the other hand, hopes to tell a street-level story.
The Cosmic Circus' Alex Perez has since chimed in to share an update. "So far what’s been out there is accurate," he says. "If I had to give my input, it would be that a middle ground is being negotiated by having the story involve both elements. And right now, Sony’s aiming for a 2025 release, which would be very unlikely to work at this current stage."
The most interesting takeaway there is the mention of a middle ground; does that mean Tom Holland's Spider-Man will enlist the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Variants to help take down The Kingpin? We're not sure he's a big enough threat to warrant that, but without knowing more, we can only speculate.
As for Garfield's future as Peter Parker, Perez cautions, "I really don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up with this because the chances of him getting a full blown movie are very minimal. A continuation of his story is 100% coming but it’s not going to warrant another film at this point in time."
Asked if the same applies to Maguire, he responded with a GIF saying, "It's a little bit different." Take that as you will!
Spider-Man 4 is clearly in a state of flux so, for now, it might be best not to read too much into anything. We're hoping creative issues don't cause too many problems and that, most importantly, this thing isn't rushed out in a mess just so Sony can reach some box office milestones after Madame Web flopped.
"The story never ends," Garfield previously teased. "Whether we film it or not, there's a story happening in a universe somewhere, there's endless potential with this character and other iterations. So yeah, he's definitely out there doing something."
Right now, we expect the heroes to share the screen again in Avengers: Secret Wars, if not sooner...