‘That was it for me’: So about that third Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movie…

The Spider-Man fandom is generally in agreement about three things: Andrew Garfield was an excellent Spidey, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was not very good, and it wasn’t Andrew Garfield’s fault that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was not very good. There was just too much working against him, not least the bizarre decision to kill off his love interest Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) after just two movies. (We’re not in the ’70s anymore, people.) Poor critical reception and a lower-than-expected box office turnout led to turmoil behind the scenes. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was supposed to come out on June 10, 2016, but obviously that never happened.

There’s long been rumors and speculation about what might have happened in this mysterious third installment. We know it would have been about Peter Parker grieving Gwen’s death. “How do you recover from that? That’s going to play out in the next movie,” director Marc Webb said in 2014. And apparently it would have also featured the return of Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper), who seemingly died in the second movie. According to Cooper himself, a scene for Amazing Spider-Man 2 was shot featuring Norman’s still-conscious head in a box but never made it into the actual film. And let’s not forget the second movie also teased the rise of the Sinister Six, so that may have played into things as well.

But now, one of the writers for Amazing Spider-Man 2 has revealed that despite initial plans for a third movie, he never wrote the script. Alex Kurtzman wrote the second movie along with Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner, and he told Screen Rant, “You know, we never wrote it. We never wrote it. I did 2 and that was it for me.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean the script wasn’t being worked on by other people — it’s possible — but if so, Kurtzman didn’t know about it. And well, in the nicest way possible, which writers may or may not have been selected to write the script isn’t an issue anymore, because there is not going to be an Amazing Spider-Man 3. Yes, though fans have asked for one after Garfield’s triumphant return as Spidey alongside Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland in the MCU, too much time has passed and the Spider-Man crown now thoroughly lives on Holland’s head. (And there won’t be a Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man 4 with Maguire either!)

It’s not that Garfield’s Spider-Man variant can never come back as a supporting character — there are still rumors he might show up in the MCU again despite Garfield frequently denying it — but an Amazing Spider-Man 3 would confuse the hell out of audiences who already have a Spidey, a Green Goblin, and so on. Sorry, Amazing fans. Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man will forever live on as a Spider-Man who didn’t get the long-running franchise he deserved.