If this comes as a shock to you, then you haven’t been paying attention. Tobey Maguire is done playing Spider-Man. He’s been hinting at this for awhile, but now he’s confirmed it in an interview with The Daily Mail. He says of Spider-Man 3 which is due out this summer, “It feels like a trilogy to me and it feels like the end.”

You almost can’t blame the guy, after all he’s stuck with the part longer than most actors do when thrust into a role with this type. Michael Keaton did two movies, but we’ve gone through a lot of Batmen since then. And Maguire had a pretty big-time dramatic acting career before he became Spidey. It’s not like he’s defined solely by this one role, the way say, Christopher Reeves literally became Superman.

With Sam Raimi ready to call it quits after this third movie, and with Kirsten Dunst already confirmed to be finished with web slinging Maguire states the obvious: “To me it seems like this is a natural point for the team to break up because we have a lot of story conclusions that were going along for the main characters for the first two movies and we kind of tie almost everything up for the third movie.”

Of course until they actually hire someone else to take over for him, there’s always a chance. The franchise will almost certainly go on with or without Tobey. Sony may back a truck full of cash up to his house and somehow talk him into it. But it’s not like he needs the money. I doubt it will work. Enjoy Spider-Man 3 folks, it’s all downhill for the webhead from here.