I think it's no surprise that Sony destroyed the Spider-Man franchise TWICE.
Sam Raimi was adamant against putting Venom in his third film. He had no desire in the character, yet Sony demanded him to be put in. You can sense his lack on enthusiasm whenever Venom is on screen. Even the "emo Parker" scenes seem like Raimi just not taking that entire subplot seriously. Even if the franchise had continued, I doubt Raimi would have been a part of it. I think the studio interference soured him.
Then, after a successful reboot, Sony once again shoots the franchise in the back of the head. Instead of just letting them do the death of Gwen Stacey plotline (which was handled extremely well, IMO), the studio insisted that the filmmakers create a "shared universe" and cram everything setting it up into that one film. It was terrible. Thank God none of that ever came to pass.
They wanted to do an Aunt May origin film. Seriously.