Could The Amazing Spider-Man 3 With Andrew Garfield Still Happen After His MCU Debut?

It feels like we need an honorary achievement award for great superhero actors who've never gotten to star in a great superhero film (at least not a solo film). Such is the case with Andrew Garfield, who had the unenviable task of following Tobey Maguire's well-liked performance as Peter Parker in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" films when Sony decided to reboot the franchise after "Spider-Man 3." The result was director Marc Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man," an okay film that hurries through Peter Parker's origin story — as though it's embarrassed to be rehashing the story a decade after Raimi told it better — while at the same time laying the groundwork for not just a sequel but an entire cinematic universe.

Unfortunately, Webb's "Amazing Spider-Man 2" was a mess, cramming in way more plot than it knew how to handle while also struggling to nail down its tone (somewhere between an earnest superhero coming-of-age drama and "Batman & Robin" levels of over-the-top campiness). It went on to become the lowest-grossing live-action "Spider-Man" film so far, which was all the incentive Sony needed to reboot the franchise yet again, this time bringing it into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Luckily, Garfield emerged unscathed from the wreckage, delivering a soulful performance as a Peter Parker who, in this re-telling, was more of a moody loner than the nerdy outcast from Raimi's trilogy.

Because of this, audiences were pleased when Garfield finally got a chance to really shine opposite Maguire's web-slinger and Tom Holland's own Peter Parker in the MCU's multiversal crossover "Spider-Man: No Way Home." In fact, Garfield's performance went over so well that it's since led to a renewed demand for "The Amazing Spider-Man 3." But what are the odds of the film actually coming to fruition?

Despite the movie's financial underperformance and unflattering critical reception, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" didn't immediately sink Sony's plans to develop a cinematic universe of its own. After postponing "The Amazing Spider-Man 3," the studio continued to move full speed ahead with "Sinister Six" and "Venom" spinoffs and even started working on another spinoff potentially centered on the likes of Felicia Hardy, aka. Black Cat. Courtesy of the infamous Sony hack of 2014, it later came out that the studio had even considered bringing Raimi back into the fray, on top of joining forces with Marvel Studios to incorporate Spidey into the MCU.

Given their sheer amount of baggage, it's little wonder the House of Ideas elected for a clean break from the "Amazing Spider-Man" films upon working out a deal to share the "Spider-Man" rights with Sony. Since then, Sony has only continued to build what is now known as Sony's Spider-Man Universe, a franchise that exists within the MCU multiverse yet centers on Spider-Man antiheroes like Venom, Morbius, and Kraven the Hunter rather than any single iteration of Peter Parker. Meanwhile, Marvel Studios only barely put a bow on its high school "Spider-Man" trilogy with "No Way Home" and has refrained from announcing anything for the future while Holland takes a well-earned breather. 

In other words, there's not really an obvious place for Garfield to return as Peter Parker right now, even after his triumphant comeback in "No Way Home." Not that this has prevented unabashed Andrew Garfield fans like Holland from calling for "The Amazing Spider-Man 3" to happen anyway. It might not be a bad idea from a box office perspective either, especially if Sony strikes while the iron is still hot enough after "No Way Home."

Prior to "No Way Home," it appeared as though Garfield would never don his web-suit ever again. After the snafu that was "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," he more or less swore off big-budget productions entirely in favor of mid-budget or smaller non-franchise undertakings like Martin Scorsese's "Silence" and Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Tick, Tick... Boom!" Garfield would later confess that he found his whole experience playing Spider-Man "heartbreaking," which suggested he had no intention of ever revisiting the Peter Parker character. Of course, we now know he was lying his ass off about that second part and has a blast doing so amidst the widespread rumors about his appearance in "No Way Home."

With everything out in the open and the "Amazing Spider-Man" films having been "redeemed," where do things stand with Garfield? By his own admittance, there's nothing he can say that won't convince people he's fibbing after his shenanigans in the lead-up to "No Way Home." As he told The Hollywood Reporter in March 2022 (laughing as he did so):

"No update from me. No one's going to believe anything I say ever again. That's my problem."

Joking aside, though, Garfield called making "No Way Home" a sincerely "joyful" experience when interviewed by Variety shortly after the film's release. "There [were] so many unanswered questions for my Peter, where we left it," he added, stating that he would now be open to a further continuation "if it felt right." Therein lies the rub: Garfield is clearly willing to make "The Amazing Spider-Man 3" if there's a reason to make it other than for the sake of keeping the franchise going. But at the moment, nobody associated with Sony or Marvel Studios has yet to provide one.