After Sony attempted to reboot its “Spider-Man” franchise with Andrew Garfield as the web slinger, the studio is ready to give it a third try, this time with Kevin Feige, the man who has produced 10 consecutive blockbusters for Marvel Studios.

A deal to free up Spider-Man to appear in the Marvel cinematic universe, starting in 2017, is a clear admission by Sony that its superhero strategy with one of the most popular comicbook heroes around simply isn’t working.

That’s especially true at a time when the studio is desperate for some major film franchises. Struggling with one of the comicbook industry’s most popular superheroes was starting to get embarrassing — especially when “Guardians of the Galaxy,” starring a cast of misfits unknown to most moviegoers, broke out as a bigger hit in 2014 than the last “Spider-Man” movie when it made $774 million. “The Amazing Spider Man 2″ earned nearly $709 million worldwide.

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ just wasn’t the billion-dollar hit that Sony’s Amy Pascal had been looking for last year — and needed to be in order to keep full control over the character. That movie became the lowest grossing film of Sony’s five Spidey films to date, and forced the studio to instantly start rethinking its plans for the character, even giving up a piece of the franchise.