Amazing Spiderman 2 Release Date Announced: Director Webb and Star Garfield to Return, but will Emma Stone?

Moviegoers who found their selves yearning for more Peter Parker after the debut of this summer's The Amazing Spiderman are in luck, as Columbia Pictures recently announced a May 2, 2014 release date for the sequel.

The Amazing Spiderman 2 will begin principal photography in early 2013, marking the return of director Mark Webb and star Andrew Garfield. Emma Stone, who portrayed Gwen Stacy in the Spidey reboot, is also in negotiations for reprising her role, so fans should anticipate her return. The screenplay for the sequel was penned by Robert Orci, Jeff Pinker, and Alex Kurtzman, using a draft written by Amazing Spiderman screenwriter James Vanderbilt.

President of Columbia Pictures Doug Belgrad stated, "We could not be more confident in the direction we are taking this new Spider-Man storyline and we are tremendously excited to be ramping up production again with Marc at the helm and Andrew continuing on as Peter Parker. We can't wait to share what we have in store for Peter and Spider-Man with audiences worldwide."

The Amazing Spiderman grossed $261,471,268 to date in the U.S. box office and was well received, however many critics panned the film for re-retreading ground that Sam Raimi's Spiderman covered just a handful of years prior. IndieWire reviewer Leonard Matlin writes, "By retelling the origin story of Peter Parker so soon after Sam Raimi's 2002 smash hit, starring Tobey Maguire, the new film-making team... not only invites direct comparison with the earlier picture and its sequels but makes it impossible to avoid."

Despite these complaints, the relationship between Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy was repeatedly praised in reviews. "The moments of "The Amazing Spider-Man" that work best are those between Peter and Gwen - a meeting of young minds that is awkwardly charming," asserts the Salt Lake Tribune's Sean Means.

Now that the origin story has been told, the creative team only has to grab hold of what makes their vision of Peter unique to shed the plague of comparisons to Raimi's original that the The Amazing Spiderman was so afflicted by.