The Amazing Spider-Man has been cooking for at least a year; Acti canned Spider-Man 4

It's hard to nail down exactly when Beenox began production of The Amazing Spider-Man. According to Activision producer Doug Heder, Amazing has been in the works for longer than either Shattered Dimensions or Edge of Time, the publisher's two latest Spidey titles. "We've spent more time on this game than we will have on either of the other two," he explained to me after Marvel's game panel at New York Comic Con this past weekend.

But that's not to say that all that time has been spent in production -- apparently the genesis of Amazing was nearly four years ago, though development didn't begin in earnest until about a year ago. "They are two completely separate teams," Heder said of the developing studio, Beenox. "We have separate leads, separate artists, separate designers -- they're working in parallel with each other."

Heder also noted that, at one point, Activison had another studio working on a Spider-Man 4 title to be released alongside a planned movie. When the movie fell through, however, Activision canceled the project and concentrated on other Spidey games. "That was a completely different studio that was working on it, completely different tech, and engine and everything," Heder said. "And when the movie shut down, we shut the game down." Reports from 2009 suggest Radical was working on the now canned title, but Heder unfortunately wouldn't get any more specific.