News comes as the marketing push for
Spider-Man 2, which bows July 2, is about to kick into overdrive. Studio is lining up new corporate sponsors and ramping up its worldwide marketing plans.
Sony confirmed that the studio has pushed
Spider-Man 3 into development, but would not offer more details.
During a Q4 earnings conference call on Tuesday, Marvel Studios chairman-CEO Avi Arad said that
Spider-Man 3 is in development and that a contemplated release date will be probably 2007.
Arad said the pic could possibly bow in 2006, but that 'It is a big movie, and we would rather play it safe and talk about the 2007 at this point.
There have been reports that director Sam Raimi has committed to making the movie, and agents and managers for Tobey Maguire (aka Peter Parker), have been working around a tentative
Spider-Man 3 schedule when booking the thesp for other projects.