Re: HT 1/6 Amazing Spiderman line
Wasn't it because if they don't do a Spidey movie after a certain number of years, they lose the rights and it would've went back to Marvel?
Yes but a reboot wasn't required for that. In fact an actual full-fledged film isn't required for that. They couldn't have filmed Garfield's interaction with fans at the SDCC panel, put into a theater in New York and charged a fee to watch it and technically renewed their contract for the full rights.
The reason for the reboot is fairly simple, Spider-Man 3 while not really appreciated by fans still pulled an amazing amount of money overall. What didn't full really well was merchandising. Sony knows that where a film makes the majority of its money is on all things outside of the actual theater itself. Not to mention that reboots of Batman, James Bond, Star Trek, etc have shown to actually bring in audiences as it's the current Hollywood gimmick, right behind 3D.
New film, people will go see it even if they hated the Tobey films just to see what's new, which is exactly how they are promoting this anyway. It's a cash grab, plain and simple that has very little to do with how back Spider-Man 3 "sucked" and more to do with the executives at Sony wanting part of the reboot pie.
Besides, Sony's film division is in such dire straits that even if this film does amazingly well and outdoes all before it, the company itself may not be able to sustain it and the rights would revert back to Marvel anyway.
Which is the same reason Warner Bros. is re-booting the Supes franchise.
And the same reason Fox keeps flogging the Wolverine & Fantastic Four horses.
This isn't accurate. Warner Bros is rebooting the Superman franchise because the last film was a flop all around. It was viewed as a continuation of the Donner franchise, even by Robinov himself, who publically said the reboot was to remove the taste of Superman Returns from the audience. They aren't dealing with rights reverting back to anyone as they own DC outright, what they need is a profitable film to keep the families who own the rights technically happy.
As for Fox, they have the same deal as Marvel. Dressing someone up as Wolverine, filming it and charging for it, covers the bases. They are continuing the Singer franchise (X:FC is said to connect into X1 according to Singer who drafted the initial scripts and produced X:FC) because X2 was the last film to be both a commercial and a fan success. Fantastic Four is actually running the lines of reverting back to Marvel if something doesn't get done within the next three years I believe and Daredevil is already in the process of rebooting with David Slade.
Rebooting is the "in" thing to do, nothing else. It has very little to do with rights.