Roberto Orci on 'The Amazing Spider-Man 3': "I Don't Know What Their Plans Are for That Franchise"

If a plummeting box office performance, overwhelming negative reviews and franchise fatigue weren't enough, the future of The Amazing Spider-Man series appears to now be in flux. When the man who wrote the screenplay for a franchise's most recent installment and is currently listed as the writer of the next film says, "I don't know what their plans are for that franchise," there's a problem.

That's exactly what Roberto Orci told IGN on Friday, revealing that despite still being on board to co-write The Amazing Spider-Man 3 with Alex Kurtzman, he was unaware of the timeline for the franchise going forward. In fact, he's now even saying that he's "not officially involved in it."

"I don't know what their plans are for that franchise," Orci told IGN. "I don't ever want to say never, but we have to figure out what their scheduling is in terms of when they want each movie. I've read probably as much as anyone else. There's a love for the Sinister Six, the idea of Venom — there's an idea of Spider-Man's going to be one of these characters that's part of our business. He's such a popular character. Spider-Man's not going to go away any time soon. When it all happens and how and all that has yet to be determined."

With plans for two more Amazing Spider-Man sequels (with the first one set to open on June 10, 2016), a Venom movie and a Sinister Six spinoff, Sony can't be happy to see its premiere superhero franchise is disarray. Marvel Studios is printing money with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Fox is doing monster business with the X-Men franchise alone. When does Sony get to the point where it starts giving Disney/Marvel Studios a price to buy back rights to Spider-Man?