Spider-Man: Why Andrew Garfield Should Lead Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters
With the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, perhaps nobody has been the subject of more conversation than Andrew Garfield. The Amazing Spider-Man star appeared in the film, reprising his role as the Peter Parker of that universe, and delivering a great performance that left fans mournful that Garfield never got a Spider-Man movie that was well-enough-liked that he got credit for his great turn as the character. Fans have started making noise about an Amazing Spider-Man 3, Garfield has said he is open to future possibilities in the franchise, and all of this is happening against the backdrop of a truly wide-open Spider-Verse.
Besides seeing Garfield (and Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire) again in No Way Home, and the animated Spider-Verse franchise broadening the public's understanding of the character's many iterations, there's an entire Spider-Man universe out there ready to be populated. Sony's universe of Spider-Man characters, currently populated by Venom but about to be the setting for movies featuring Morbius the Living Vampire, Kraven the Hunter, and Jackpot, is currently without a Spider-Man. It's also confirmed (by way of the No Way Home post-credits stinger) that the Venom movies do not take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
So, why not give Andrew Garfield a permanent home in the Sonyverse?
With the right filmmaker and the right script, Garfield could create a spellbinding Spider-Man movie, and Sony is currently without a Spider-Man in what they are setting up as a shared universe based on characters...who are exclusively set in and around the story of Spider-Man.
For the uninitiated, Sony's grip on the Spider-Man rights is something that happened in the late '90s, when Marvel licensed the rights to numerous franchises to different studios in the hopes of dealing with their financial difficulties. Fox had the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights, and could keep a grip on them as long as they made a movie on certain, scheduled intervals so the property wasn't sitting there getting stale. Sony has a similar deal with Spider-Man, and given the popularity of characters like Venom and Morbius as their own stand-alone characters, had decided they could exploit the Spider-Man IP even more by creating a little world populated by the heroes and villains of Spidey's world.
Garfield's victory lap after No Way Home has been a sight to behold, and he has always been adorable and relatable as a fan of the character who got the role of his dreams...only to have the franchise dissolve under him after disappointing box office returns on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 pushed Sony to partner with Marvel, who wanted an all-new Spider-Man to introduce in Captain America: Civil War.
That fans are out there advocating for Garfield, at the same time Tom Holland is out there publicly casting doubt on whether he wants to keep doing Spider-Man movies indefinitely, seems like an opportunity. It's likely Holland, who has become white-hot since taking over the Spider-Man role, needs a break from the MCU for a minute, and post-No Way Home seems like the perfect time to let him cool down a little, finish some other roles, and return to the presumed next trilogy fresh. In the meantime, putting Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man in Venom 3 could provide the perfect opportunity for his Peter to finally get to fight an alien.