Spider-Man's had a fittingly up-and-down past few weeks. First, to the relief of many, his property swung from struggling Sony to surging Marvel. Then Marvel announced that—once again—Peter Parker's story is going to start in high school. Andrew Garfield fell from the Marvel web because he was too old for school. Before recasting, however, Marvel needed to tab a writer and director. And they turned to the fellow who was supposed to direct Sony's next Spider-Man themed spin-off villain film, The Sinister Six: Drew Goddard. Same as it ever was.
Reboot movement-related-nausea aside, this announcement makes perfect sense. Goddard had already written the first few episodes of Netflix/Marvel's first co-production, Daredevil. Originally, Goddard was slated to write and direct the entire season, but when Sony freaked on their superhero properties and bumped The Sinister Six ahead of the next Spider-Man movie, Goddard had to leave Daredevil earlier than expected (he stayed on both as a consultant, and series creator).
Clearly, Marvel wanted to stay in the Goddard business. Perhaps because Goddard was already was a part of the larger Mouse House web. Goddard is also from the same treehouse of horrors as Joss Whedon. Goddard wrote late season episodes for Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and the two co-wrote The Cabin in the Woods. Goddard made his directorial debut with The Cabin in the Woods, a smart horror comedy (which also co-starred the future Thor, Chris Hemsworth). But in addition to his Whedon relationship, Goddard also has worked extensively with J.J. Abrams, not only by writing episodes for Alias, and Lost but also the Abrams-produced found footage film, Cloverfield. Abrams is, of course, directing the new Star Wars movie. And all of these recent Goddard-Abrams-Whedon moves have been at Disney. Now that's a fully mapped out interconnected universe of writer-directors. With that in mind, Goddard appears to be a pretty good bet for Marvel and Disney to get the third cinematic Spider-Man into their Avengers universe.
Latino Review, who broke the initial Goddard report, also says that that's precisely where Spider-Man is going from the start: attempting to join up with The Avengers after fighting Iron Man.
The first Marvel-led, Goddard-scripted/directed The Spectacular Spider-Man will arrive in 2017, and most likely Spider-Man will attempt join up with the Avengers in the next movie: The Avengers: Infinity War—Part 1 (due in 2018). So the next announcement will surely be casting for the teenager who takes on Iron Man—and attempts to join The Avengers. And just how did Spidey's attempt to join up with the Avengers go in the comics? Same as it ever was.
UPDATE: The Sinister Six film—featuring six of Spider-Man's most frequent villains—has been scrapped. There is the idea of giving Spidey-villain standalone films in the future. As you'd expect.
