In 2012, The Amazing Spider-Man landed in cinemas. The comic book film, about a wall-crawling super hero, starred Andrew Garfield in the title role and was the first of multiple movies featuring the actor as Spidey.
But how many Spider-Man movies feature Andrew Garfield? All the details are revealed below, along with some other key information about The Amazing Spider-Man movie series.
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How many movies feature Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man?
To date, there are four Spider-Man movies featuring Andrew Garfield. The Spider-Man movies include:
- The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)*
*Please note: This appearance is via a brief piece of archival footage
- The two Amazing Spider-Man movies are part of the same series. The events depicted in these films take place in chronological order.
- Spider-Man: No Way Home takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is set after the events of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. While the film focuses on a different Spider-Man (as played by Tom Holland), the movie features a significant role for Andrew Garfield.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is an animated movie, featuring multiple Spider-people. Garfield appears very briefly in the movie via some archival material taken from 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man.
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How many Spider-Man movies feature Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy?
To date, there are two Spider-Man movies featuring Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. The movies include:
- The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
- The Amazing Spider-man 2 (2014)
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Who are Peter Parker’s parents in The Amazing Spider-Man movies?
In The Amazing Spider-Man movie series, Peter Parker’s parents are Richard and Mary Parker. Richard Parker is played by Campbell Scott, while Mary Parker is played by Embeth Davidtz.
In The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter’s parents are introduced during the opening moments of the film. The scene takes place when Peter Parker is a young boy.
Few details are revealed about his parents, except that Richard has a home office where he is working on a project involving spiders. But his office is broken into and this spooks him.
Without any explanation, Richard and Mary travel to the home of Ben and May Parker – Peter’s uncle and aunt. They ask Ben and May to look after Peter for an undetermined amount of time, and then leave.
It is later established that Richard and Mary Parker never return and Peter grows up in the care of Uncle Ben and Aunt May. A few additional details are also revealed, which explain that Richard once worked at Oscorp, on a project involving cross-species genetics.
In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the Parker story is continued – picking up where the opening scene of The Amazing Spider-Man left off.
After leaving Peter in the care of Uncle Ben and Aunt May, the Parkers take a flight. But the plane is hijacked by an unnamed man who has killed the pilot and intends to kill the Parkers.
An altercation between the unnamed man and Richard takes place, a shot is fired, the plane cabin loses pressure and then it loses an engine. The plane descends towards the sea and Peter’s parents are presumed dead.
Two days after the funeral, two FBI agents arrive at the home of Ben and May Parker. They believe that Richard was involved with highly important (and incredibly lucrative) research and they brand Richard and Mary Parker as traitors to their country.
So, were Peter Parker’s parents traitors? No.
It is later revealed in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 that Richard was working on a genetics project for Norman Osborn – the head of Oscorp. In order to continue funding Richard’s work, Osborn made a deal with an unnamed foreign organisation.
Richard’s work was very important and in the wrong hands it could be used as a weapon. So, when Richard discovered that the organisation intended to use his research for nefarious purposes, he refused to comply and destroyed data.
To ensure his work could not be replicated, Richard and Mary went on the run to get as far away from Norman Osborn and Oscorp as possible. To bury the truth about their deaths, Osborn falsified evidence which branded Richard and Mary as traitors.
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Why did The Amazing Spider-Man movies focus on Peter’s parents?
The Amazing Spider-Man movies focused on Peter’s parents as this was an area of Peter’s life that was not explored in previous Spider-Man movies. In fact, in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy – the three Spidey movies which proceeded the Amazing films – there was no reference to Peter’s parents at all.
For the Amazing movies, a decision was made to explore who Richard and Mary were and put their absence into some context, while creating a mystery that could play out across the course of the films. Richard’s work also tied into Peter’s transformation, as it was his research which indirectly led to Peter receiving super powers.
While the Parker storyline was wrapped up in the theatrical cut of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the original plan was to keep it going with additional material. Had The Amazing Spider-Man 3 made it to production, then perhaps we would have seen further details about Richard and Mary’s past.
In a deleted scene from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it is revealed that Richard Parker is still alive (although Mary has since passed away). In the scene – included on the home video release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – Richard seeks out Peter, shortly after Gwen Stacy’s funeral.
Richard and Peter share an exchange, with Peter explaining that he is finding it hard to continue in light of Gwen’s death. Richard encourages Peter to keep Gwen’s memory close and tells him that “with great power, comes great responsibility.”
Should this scene have been included in the movie? No.
Although the deleted scene is powerful, ultimately it was best not to include it in the movie. The Parker storyline was given a resolution in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and that was much more satisfying than hinting at something that simply would not have been resolved.
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Who are the villains in The Amazing Spider-Man movies?
Across the course of the two films, the series introduced a number of villains. Some became a key focus of the story, while others were merely background players, introduced for inclusion in future movies (which never materialised).
The villains of The Amazing Spider-Man movie series include:
Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard – Rhys Ifans
The primary villain of The Amazing Spider-Man is Dr. Curtis Connors – a scientist at Oscorp who is working on research involving cross-species genetics. Connors’ research has the potential to help amputees regrow lost limbs – something that he himself would benefit from, having previously lost his right arm.
Upon piecing together a potentially successful formula – with the help of Peter Parker – Connors experiments on himself. But while the experiment gives Connors a new arm, it also transforms him into The Lizard – a deranged, humanoid reptile.
Convenience store thief – Leif Gantvoort
The second core villain, yet perhaps the most important one on this list, is an unnamed thief who appears in the first half of The Amazing Spider-Man. This thief is arguably the most important villain on this list as he leads Peter Parker down a path towards being a hero.
The unnamed man robs a convenience store in front of Peter Parker. Parker has the opportunity to stop him, but chooses not to – even though he is powerful enough to do so.
Due to Peter’s inactions, the thief runs away from the store and straight into the path of Peter’s uncle, Ben Parker. The thief shoots and kills Uncle Ben, turning Peter’s world upside down in the process.
Gustav Fiers/The Gentleman – Michael Massee
A third villain appears in The Amazing Spider-Man in the shape of a mysterious figure who pops up during a post-credit scene. Although he is credited as ‘Man in the Shadows’, this figure is Gustav Fiers, aka The Gentleman.
The Gentleman only appears briefly in the first movie, but takes a slightly bigger role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Mr. Fiers is building a team of supervillains, which will potentially include the Vulture and Doctor Octopus. His first recruit/test subject, is The Rhino.
Max Dillon/Electro – Jamie Foxx
Max Dillon is an Oscorp employee, with a very low opinion of himself. Max thinks he is a nobody, until Spider-Man saves his life and he suddenly sees value in his existence.
This act leads Dillon to believe he and Spider-Man are best friends, and he obsesses over the wall-crawler. But this obsession takes a sinister turn when Dillon acquires electric-based abilities in an accident, and he takes a path towards becoming a supervillain.
Norman Osborn – Chris Cooper
Norman Osborn appears briefly in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, as the bed ridden owner of Oscorp. Osborn is dying from a degenerative disease called retroviral hypodysplasia – which has caused him to mutate and eventually leads to his death.
Harry Osborn/Green Goblin – Dane DeHaan
Harry Osborn is a childhood friend of Peter Parker, but the pair drift apart when Harry is sent away to boarding school. When his father becomes ill, Harry returns to New York to take over Oscorp.
Suffering from retroviral hypodysplasia – the same condition that kills his father – Harry searches for a cure, which he believes can be found in Spider-Man’s blood. But when Spider-Man refuses to help him, Harry injects himself with an experimental formula, which transforms him into a goblin-like creature.
Aleksei Sytsevich/Rhino – Paul Giamatti
Aleksei Sytsevich is a Russian mobster, who is introduced towards the beginning of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, during a dramatic police chase. Sytsevich has stolen a truck filled with plutonium and Spider-Man and a squad of police cars are on his trail.
Spider-Man catches Sytsevich – humiliating him in the process – and this leads to the character’s incarceration in the prison known as The Vault. But Sytsevich breaks out of the prison, with help from The Gentleman, and is given a battle suit which turns him into The Rhino.
Alistair Smythe – B.J. Novak
Alistair Smythe appears as an employee of Oscorp in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. He bosses Max Dillon around and views him as nothing more than an underling.
Fans of the comics will know Smythe for his connection to the Spidey-hunting robots called the Spider Slayers. However, this is not something which is mentioned in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Smythe merely appears in the movie as a background character.
Additional villains
In addition to the above villains, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 teases a couple of classic Spider-Man adversaries. These villains include Doctor Octopus and the Vulture, who are part of Oscorp’s secretive ‘Special Projects’ department.
There are only two entries in The Amazing Spider-Man series, yet across the two films a significant number of villains are introduced into the Spider-Man movie mythology. Some of these villains are used as primary characters, while others were being lined up for an appearance in the aborted The Amazing Spider-Man 3.
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In which movie did Captain Stacy die?
The Spider-Man film in which Captain Stacy was killed was 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man. The character – played by Denis Leary – died at the hands of the villainous Lizard, while he was helping Spider-Man save the city from a deadly scheme.
The death of Captain Stacy took place during the climax of the film, and was a key story beat. Not only did he help Spidey in his battle with the Lizard, as Captain Stacy took his last breath, he made Spider-Man/Peter Parker promise to keep away from his daughter, Gwen, to ensure she was never placed in danger.
Peter reluctantly agreed to keep that promise, but soon backed down on that agreement when he realised his feelings for Gwen were too strong. This led to Peter being haunted by visions of Captain Stacy in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, as he wrestled with the guilt of breaking his promise.
Those who have watched The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will know things don’t end well for Gwen Stacy either. The character is also killed off during a climactic battle with the Green Goblin, which only further added to Peter’s guilt.
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How much money did The Amazing Spider-Man movies make?
Produced on a budget of $230 million, The Amazing Spider-Man was released in 2012 as the first entry in Sony Pictures’ Amazing Spider-Man movie series. The film took $262,030,663 in North America and $495,900,000 internationally, to deliver a total of $757,930,663.
Two years after Sony Pictures released The Amazing Spider-Man, the sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 arrived in cinemas. This entry took $202,853,933 at the North American box office (a drop of around $60 million from its predecessor) and $506,128,390 internationally (a $10 million increase on The Amazing Spider-Man).
The total for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was $708,982,323 – a sizeable amount. However, the film did not perform as well as The Amazing Spider-Man and was not well received by critics or audiences.
Combined total of The Amazing Spider-Man movies: $1,466,912,986
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And finally, why was The Amazing Spider-Man movie series cancelled after two films?
The Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man movies, which were released between 2002 and 2007, were big hits for Sony Pictures with the most successful entry being Spider-Man 3, which made over $890 million.
Released five years after Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man didn’t prove quite so popular and took almost $150 million less than its predecessor. It was the lowest grossing entry in Sony’s Spider-Man movie series until The Amazing Spider-Man 2 came along.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 arrived two years later and took less money than The Amazing Spider-Man, which meant the series was now on a profit decline. The films were still making a considerable amount of money, but with a rise in budgets and a drop in box office returns, it was clear the series was not performing as well as the studio had hoped.
Sony had planned to launch a Spider-Verse around The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but the box office returns, plus the lukewarm reception suggested this was not the best way forward for the series. The studio wanted to build a universe around a successful film, rather than a less successful one.
Sony ultimately made the decision to cancel any forthcoming projects connected to The Amazing Spider-Man films, including the proposed The Amazing Spider-Man 3. This also meant cancelling The Sinister Six – a villain team-up film that was heavily teased in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Cancelling The Amazing Spider-Man series was a business decision to provide the Spider-Man film series with a fresh start. The Spider-Man movies have proved to be important films for Sony Pictures, and incredibly high earners, so reinvention was deemed the best way forward.
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