Take this for what it's worth, but after the news that Sony may be looking to include Spider-man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we cannot discount anything. If this report out of Badass Digest ends up being true, then Sony may be on the verge of losing a lot of fans of their franchise.
Again, this somewhat flies in the face of some of the news we have heard, but with Hollywood, anything is possible. Here are the three tidbits we are hearing.
– Sony is going to soft reboot Spider-Man with THE SINISTER SIX having a new actor playing a Spidey who works with the villains The Dirty Dozen style to take down a larger threat.
– Sony is going to put Spider-Man on the shelf for four or five years and see if they can develop any of the side characters into their own franchises.
I've also heard that VENOM is functionally dead again.
The hold-off of more sequels to THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN doesn't seem that far-fetched, but to recast Spider-man now would fly in the face of the fact that Andrew Garfield is still contracted for another film. I could see Garfield working within that model for THE SINISTER SIX, but this still seems like a stretch. As for VENOM being dead, this also goes against the developments reported by the director, Alex Kurtzman, just within the last few months. But, since there were still in the scripting phase, it isn't completely impossible.
Sony is clinging to the franchises they have left and the possibility of trying to link theirs to Marvel seems like a desperate maneuver, as does this supposed soft reboot. We won't know for certain unless the studio tells us outright and the odds of that are slim to none. So, unless we hear otherwise, consider THE SINISTER SIX still on track for November 2016.