Movies With Butter

The Amazing Spider-Man 3 is currently slated for release on June 10, 2016, but according to an Ain't It Cool News source, it has been pushed back to an undetermined date in 2017.

If true, why is it happening? The writer didn't expound, but the precipitous drop of the domestic box office may have a lot to do with it.

Beginning with the Sam Raimi era, the domestic box office for each of the Spider-Man movies have steadily declined even though the box office overseas remained relatively robust.

To put things in perspective, the first Spider-Man movie grossed $404 million domestically, but the latest one, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, grossed only $197 million. If the trend holds, The Amazing Spider-Man 3 will make even less than $197 million, which is definitely a concern for a studio in dire financial strait like Sony.

If there is a delay, I don't expect Sony to reboot the franchise so soon. The extra time will be used to work on the story and how to make it for an even lower budget. This is all speculation until there's an official announcement, though, but it's something to keep an eye on.

Domestic & worldwide box office totals for all Spider-Man movies (source: Boxofficemojo.com):

Spider-Man (2002) - $403 million, $822 million
Spider-Man 2 (2004) - $374 million, $784 million
Spider-Man 3 (2007) - $337 million, $891 million
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - $262 million, $758 million
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) - $202 million, $706 million
The Amazing Spider-Man 3 (2016) - $???, $???

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