Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man got off to a strong start over the holiday, setting a new box office record for a single-day Tuesday opening (with an estimated $35 million) and the second-best posting for a July 4th screening. Before the film opened, we wondered if the reboot would earn enough money to justify a sequel. Now that the film’s breaking records, the question shifts to, "How many sequels will this successful reboot deliver?"

 

In interviews leading up to the film’s release, producers Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad were hinting at "multiple" Spider-Man movies, saying "at least three" were on the studio’s radar. Then, on the day the movie opened, the film’s official Facebook page confirmed that this would be "the first installment in a movie trilogy that will explore how our fave hero’s journey was shaped by the disappearance of his parents."

 

So there you go. A trilogy. And the plot threads introduced in this thrilling reboot now can be explored over two additional films. Respected screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci already have been hired for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (or whatever they’ll choose to call it), and Sony already has set a release date for May 2, 2014. Very exciting. 

 

There are characters Spider-Man fans think that they’ll see in the sequels, Most notably, speculation has swirled around the Green Goblin, who plays an integral part in the tragic future of Gwen Stacy (played by the lovely Emma Stone). 

 

But two things are throwing us off the proverbial scent of Norman Osborn and his alter ego, the Green Goblin, as a focal point for the pending sequel. For starters, in an interview with Ain’t It Cool News, Spider-Man villain Rhys Ifans flat-out claims that the mysterious man in the post-credits sequence is not Norman, but rather an employee of the menacing Oscorp. That doesn’t mean Norman won’t be the villain in a Spider-Man sequel. It just means there might be additional villains to the iconic Goblin. 

 

Could there be six total villains? Now we’re getting somewhere. In an interview with SuperheroHype, the candid Tolmach and Arad referenced the character-clad Avengers movie as a model for how they could possibly pit Spidey against The Sinister Six, a band of villains that included Mysterio, Doctor Octopus, Electro, the Vulture, Kraven and Sandman. That being said, one of the major criticisms aimed as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 was that between Venom, Sandman and Harry Osborn’s Goblin, there were too many villains. Juggling six Spidey villains would be a major challenge for any director, no matter how much screen time he or she is given. 

     

So the details are vague, but the future for Marvel and Sony’s Spider-Man looks very bright. Tell us, who would you like to see Andrew Garfield square off against in the announced sequel? And how should the franchise conclude when we reach part three of this rebooted trilogy? Share your thoughts below!

 

Follow along on Twitter @Sean_OConnell and @Fandango.