Sony Pictures had some ambitious plans for Spider-Man in the 2010s. While 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man didn't deliver the "Untold Story" it promised, it still served as an exciting fresh start for Peter Parker.
It seems the studio baulked at the idea that Richard and Mary Parker experimented on their son to give him spider DNA, which was supposed to be why that bite activated his powers. More convoluted nonsense beyond that was left on the cutting room floor, and when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 followed two years later, Sony's focus had shifted to setting up Sinister Six.
The sequel did that in predictably heavy-handed fashion, and a Sinister Six movie was announced along with The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and 4.
A combination of the tepid response to the movie and the Sony Hack ultimately prompted Sony to partner with Marvel Studios and bring Spidey into the MCU. Tom Holland took over the role in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Drew Goddard left Netflix's Daredevil so he could write and direct Sinister Six, and in an interview with Coy Jandreau for Project Hail Mary, the filmmaker revealed more about what might have been.
"I wanted it to feel like a summer annual. I feel like I'm tired of serialisation in comic book movies," Goddard said. "I get the important part, but what I loved was the summer annual where you had the ongoing, but then every summer you would get one story that was bananas. I said when I pitched it, 'I'm not going to screw up anyone's continuity, but I want to feel like, 'Oh my god, what happened?'"
"That was the feeling that I wanted to get. I still haven't seen anyone capture that. I'm not giving up. I got to get a summer annual."
Asked whether Sinister Six would be told from the perspective of its villains, Goddard seemed to confirm that was the case, but added, "It was a Spider-Man movie. That's the other thing I'll tell you. Spider-Man was in the movie, but it was a different approach."
There's since been some chatter about another take on Sinister Six, but nothing has materialised. Sony took a crack at telling villain-led stories, and even seemed to be building to one based on The Vulture's meeting with the Living Vampire in Morbius.
Fortunately, those projects have since been scrapped after overwhelmingly negative reviews and diminishing box office returns (whatever that version of Sinister Six was, chances are it wouldn't have featured Spider-Man).
In 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home, the web-spinner battled Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Electro, Sandman, and The Lizard. However, he's yet to fight the Sinister Six on screen.