Sony May Reboot Spider-Man With Sinister Six Movie (Or Shelve Him Altogether)

The future of Sony's Spider-Man franchise appears to be in a state of serious flux if a recent series of reports is to be believed.

First a deal to bring Spidey into Marvel's Avengers universe of films was believed to be on the cards, and now another report is claiming two other possible paths for the web-slinger. Badass Digest's Devin Faraci reports that Sony's other two plans are as so:

- Sony is going to soft reboot Spider-Man with The Sinister Six, having a new actor playing a Spidey who works with the villains The Dirty Dozen style to take down a larger threat.

- Sony is going to put Spider-Man on the shelf for four or five years and see if they can develop any of the side characters into their own franchises.

They also claim that the planned Venom spin-off is "functionally dead", which would be bizarre because if Sony wanted to make a side character a star then Venom is the most obvious candidate.

Since being announced last year there has been little movement from Sony regarding the state of its Sinister Six and Venom projects. Sinister Six was set to be written and directed by Drew Goddard, while Venom was being overseen by Alex Kurtzman.

If Sony is considering the future of its Spidey franchise it won't be for want of greater financial success (unless it's seriously deluded). Both Amazing Spider-Man films to date took over $700m (£435m) worldwide.

Quality could certainly be an issue. Neither of the films were showered with praise, the sequel in particular drawing ire from critics and fans alike. The original has an average rating of 6.7/10 on Rotten Tomatoes, with the sequel on 5.9/10.

Even when that original was released, a common complaint was that the film came too soon after the last film – just four years. In that case shelving the character makes the most sense, but from the point of view of a fan Spider-Man joining The Avengers is a dream come true.

Rebooting with a Sinister Six movie makes little sense as that film is what the current two films were building up to. It would only confuse audiences further to have three separate Spider-Man franchises started over a 15 year period.

One thing is for sure, all this uncertainty and confusion has us like...