The Tobey Maguire-led Spider-Man trilogy played an integral role in elevating superhero movies in the 2000s, and last month, audiences watched Maguire’s Peter Parker team up with his counterparts played by Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Sam Raimi was the filmmaker behind that first batch of Spider-Man movies, and while he’s been keeping busy lately directing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he understandably made some time to see No Way Home. Now Raimi has shared his thoughts on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s third Spider-Man movie.
It’s important to remember that Spider-Man: No Way Home didn’t just throw Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker into the mix; it also brought back Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Alfred Molina’s Doctor octopus and Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman. So No Way Home was always going to be a special cinematic experience for Sam Raimi, and he walked away being impressed with the final product, telling Variety:
It was so much fun. I love No Way Home and the audience I was with went crazy. It was delightful to watch Alfred play his role, and Willem Dafoe, just seeing these guys take it to the next level. And Tobey was awesome as always. The best word I can say is it was refreshing for me.
It’s good to hear that Sam Raimi enjoyed watching Spider-Man: No Way Home and approved of how it handled the characters he oversaw two decades ago. There’s a scenario where Raimi could have been displeased with how his trilogy’s Peter, Green Goblin, Doc Ock and Sandman were used in this latest Spider-Man movie, though I suspect if that had been the case, Raimi likely would have kept those thoughts to himself rather than shared them with the public… at least right away. But that didn’t happen, and with Raimi having shared his opinion, now I’m curious what Marc Webb, the director of the two Amazing Spider-Man movies, thought about seeing Jamie Foxx’s Electro and Rhys Ifans’ Lizard back in action.
Following the release of Spider-Man 3 in 2007, Sam Raimi started developing Spider-Man 4, which would have seen Peter Parker colliding with Vulture and Black Cat (with John Malkovich and Anne Hathaway being eyed for those respective roles), and was initially slated for May 6, 2011. However, due to creative differences, Raimi withdrew from the project and Sony ultimately scrapped it, switching gears to rebooting the franchise with The Amazing Spider-Man. Like so many people, Raimi likely thought his era of Spider-Man on film would never be revisited, but thanks to the MCU opening up the multiverse, Spider-Man: No Way Home was able to pull it off.
This multiversal craziness unfolded when Tom Holland’s Peter Parker interfered with the spell Doctor Strange cast to make the world forget that he was a web-slinging superhero. Soon after, the Spidey antagonists started causing trouble in his reality, and while Peter was ultimately able to stop them with the help of his older counterparts, he suffered a lot of loss along the way. Our Spider-Man: No Way Home ending guide and end-credits scenes breakdown have more information on how the story wrapped up, but as for the movie itself, in addition to being met with critical acclaim, it’s also made over $1.6 billion globally, becoming the sixth biggest movie of all time worldwide.
While the return of Tom Holland’s incarnation of the Wall-Crawler is looking likely since Marvel and Sony are developing a fourth MCU-set Spider-Man movie, it’s hard to say if we’ll ever see Tobey Maguire and/or Andrew Garfield’s versions of Peter Parker again. Rest assured though, we’ll let you know if it is confirmed they’ll be back. Until then, CinemaBlend will keep you updated on all things Marvel movies; those looking forward to Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness can mark it on their calendars for May 6.
