Andrew Garfield would return for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 — but only on one condition

If you thought Sony and Marvel were going to slow things down after Spider-Man: Brand New Day, think again. The box office numbers have turned out frankly enormous, with the latest wall-crawling epic raking in a revised $360 million in the US and just shy of $1 billion worldwide. That opening haul makes it the second-biggest global debut ever, only trailing behind Avengers: Endgame. Naturally, every fan and their dog has now gone into forensic mode over that post-credits scene, trying to work out which reality, parallel universe, or dimension Marvel’s planning to spring open next.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day landed a revised $360 million domestically and roughly $932 million worldwide, the second-biggest global debut on record behind Avengers: Endgame.

Every time multiverse speculation kicks off, you can count on one actor’s name popping up again and again. Andrew Garfield keeps facing the same question: is he coming back as Peter Parker? For five years he’s mostly played dodgeball with the answer—sometimes deflecting, once or twice flat-out fibbing, and at least once giving GQ the bluntest of denials about suiting up for Avengers: Doomsday (his exact phrasing: an 'unequivocally f***ing no'). He’s even been dragged into the internet rabbit hole about whether it was actually Garfield in the Brand New Day trailer, or some deepfake trickery, dismissing the whole theory as nonsense.

This week, though, Garfield finally dropped the outright denials and gave something resembling an actual answer. On The Playlist’s The Discourse podcast, hosted by Mike DeAngelo (Garfield was on there plugging the family fantasy flick The Magic Faraway Tree), he was asked what it would take for him to slip the Spidey suit back on for another film. He admitted he had zero clue, but when pressed, he did offer a condition—the next outing would have to be 'completely unconventional', something audiences haven’t seen, way out of left field. And if you want specifics? He half-seriously floated the idea of a 'road trip movie'. Not exactly your standard web-slinging through Manhattan vibes.

Garfield said on the podcast that he’d only do another Spider-Man if it was 'completely unconventional'—in his words, 'Maybe like a road trip movie.'

Let’s be clear: Garfield wasn’t dangling a sequel or pitching The Amazing Spider-Man 3. That ship sailed back in 2014 when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 tanked (by studio standards) and Sony handed the Spidey rights to Marvel, who’ve been Tom Holland territory ever since. Garfield only had the two solo films, ending on a cliffhanger, and that’s all she wrote—for now. What he’s describing here is a genre shake-up, not a direct story carry-on. He even acknowledged he was thinking aloud, not secretly teasing new deals or negotiations.

This isn’t the first time Garfield’s played the 'different not nostalgic' card, either. Back in 2021, he told Esquire he’d only return if the story genuinely added something new, not just for a nostalgia pop. The whole 'road trip movie' idea is just the latest evolution—a griever Peter Parker wandering America, a decade after losing Gwen Stacy, is definitely more Under the Silver Lake than No Way Home.

Of course, the big-money question: would Sony or Marvel actually risk $200 million-plus on an experimental detour, especially when Brand New Day cost around $225 million and brought home a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score by sticking to the winning formula with a slightly darker spin? So far, neither studio has shown any sign they want Garfield back for the next round in 2026. In fact, he’s been quietly absent from all Spider-Man sequel chatter this year.

Garfield’s not exactly sitting on his hands, either. The Magic Faraway Tree, directed by Ben Gregor and written by Simon Farnaby, lands in US cinemas through Vertical on 21st August. Right after, he’s starring in Paul Greengrass’ The Uprising—a Peasants’ Revolt drama—coming out via Focus Features on 11th September.