‘The Amazing Spiderman 3’ Coming Back?

Sony Pictures Entertainment may have just broken the collective hearts of Marvel Cinematic Universe fans. While most of the good, bad, and sometimes baffling news from Sony Pictures Entertainment since November has come from the massive stores of data stolen and released by the Guardians of Peace, the latest disappoint comes from a far mundane source: a casting announcement.

The FlickeringMyth is reporting that New York based Bill Beckman Casting put out an open casting call for extras. The film? The Amazing Spider-Man 3. The casting notice is for men and women, age 18-65, of every ethnicity. According to the notice, filming will occur in Atlanta, Georgia, but no date is noted.

The notice may confuse and disappoint fans for multiple reasons. The previous Spider-Man film, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, was a huge success in foreign markets, but didn’t match the success of The Amazing Spider-Man and only finished 2014 as the 11th highest-grossing film of the year, though the eight highest grossing film, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, was released less than a month before the end of 2014. It was the poorest performance by any film in any version of the Spider-Man franchise.

The disappointing domestic ticket sales were enough to prompt Sony Pictures Entertainment to bump The Amazing Spider-Man 3 to 2018, and replace the planned 2016 release date with a spin-off film, The Sinister Six.

Fans had long hoped that Sony Pictures Entertainment might work with Marvel Studios to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Those hopes intensified with the announcement that the next Captain America film will adapt the popular Civil War storyline from the Marvel comics. In an iconic moment from the Civil War story, Peter Parker holds a press conference, in which he reveals that he is Spider-Man.

The data cache released by the Guardians of Peace revealed that Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Studios had at least discussed the idea of Spider-Man appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but no agreement was ever found in the stolen data or announced by either company.

The new casting announcement suggests that Spider-Man will continue in his own universe, separate from the Marvel characters still owned by the studio. Or does it?

According to the Epoch Times, Captain America: Civil War, will begin principal photography in Atlanta in the spring of 2015 for a May 2016 release date. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 was originally June 2016, before The Sinister Six took over Sony’s 2016 comic book movie slot. It’s possible that the notice is really for The Sinister Six, and it’s also possible that Sony has quietly moved The Amazing Spider-Man 3 back to 2016 in the hopes of capitalizing off of Captain America’s popularity.

Or maybe the production teams are hoping to sneak Spider-Man into Captain America: Civil War without anyone being the wiser.