‘Spider-Man’: What’s next for your friendly neighbourhood web-slinger?

Sony's franchise reboot "The Amazing Spider-Man" debuted to impressive numbers at midnight screenings across North America this week, with many industry watchers expecting the web-slinging feature to be one of the top five grossing films of the summer. While critics remain divided over the film — mostly citing some odd editing, minor plot holes, and their annoyance at seeing another Spidey origin film so soon — the record $35 million Tuesday opening for "The Amazing Spider-Man" proves that audiences are not so divided by the Marc Webb film.

Speaking of Webb, with great success comes great responsibility. Whenever a big tent-pole film does well at the box office, talk about sequels invariably starts circulating. Many factors, including the box office take and the studio's long-term commitment to the franchise, make "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" a foregone conclusion.

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If Sony doesn't make a new "Spider-Man" movie every so often, the film rights would revert back to Marvel Comics and, in turn, to rival studio Disney. With that in mind, "Transformers" writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have already been hired by Sony to pen an "Amazing" sequel, but one important question remains: Will the "500 Days of Summer" director return for the follow-up? That's something that is still unclear at this point.

Audiences may laud Webb's stewardship of the franchise, but it had been rumoured that Sony was not very happy with the first cut of the film the director submitted and ordered re-shoots to take place. Supposed production problems aside, Webb himself remains coy about the prospect of taking on the sequel, telling Playlist that he's not ready to think about the second film quite yet.

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"It's like asking a woman who's just given birth if they want to get pregnant again. I'm still nursing the baby!" Webb said. However, if the film continues to perform well, then perhaps Sony will look past the rumoured difficulties and rehire Webb for "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." While some have criticized the action (or lack thereof), there's no doubt that Webb has a firm grasp of what makes Spider-Man as a character tick.

Even if Webb opts out or is passed over by the studio, Spidey will be back on the big screen before too long — with Andrew Garfield in the title role, if the film's producers are to be believed. However, the big problem for Sony in an increasingly crowded superhero film market is how do they top not only their own films, but also the films of their competitors?

Disney's Marvel super team-up "The Avengers" set an extremely high bar for superhero action; a bar that will be difficult for solitary heroes like Spider-Man to rival. A potential solution to this is for the studio to pack the sequel with more villains, but the franchise has been burned by this approach once already. "Spider-Man 3" included Spidey rogues Sandman, Venom, and Green Goblin (sort of), and that multitude of characters cost the film dearly. The film spent so much time introducing and developing these new baddies that the movie's main character, Peter Parker/Spider-Man (you know, the guy in the title of the movie!), fell by the wayside.

While no details about possible sequel villains have been confirmed just yet, producers Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad have been talking a lot about the super villain team the Sinister Six. Originally made up of Spidey nemeses Electro, Vulture, Kraven, Sandman, Mysterio, and Doctor Octopus in the comic books, the makeup of the team has changed over the years to include other Spider-Man villains. Tolmach and Arad seem keen on the idea of introducing one or two of these villains per sequel, culminating in an "Avengers"-style throwdown in which Spider-Man must take them all on at once. Add to that the prospect of Spider-Man appearing in the standalone "Venom" film currently in development, and Sony has a huge slate of Spider-verse films in the offing.

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On top of all this, there's also the possibility that Spider-Man could cameo or heavily feature in future mainline Marvel universe films like "The Avengers 2." However, despite Marvel's enthusiasm for such a thing, the amount of legal wrangling between Disney and Sony that would have to take place still makes a Spidey/Avengers collaboration a bit of a long shot.