Twenty years after Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire brought Spider-Man to the big screen in the self-titled Spider-Man adventure of 2002, the two men miraculously are back in the Marvel fold and playing with the characters they have made iconic over the decades. Maguire, as you no doubt know, returned to the role of Peter Parker in Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: No Way Home, a movie that introduced the larger concept of a Multiverse. Which brings us to Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, opening in theaters in May. But… could these two ever get back together and tell a new Spider-Man story?
Sam Raimi agreed to do an interview with Fandango to mark the beginning of tickets being on sale for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And during the talk, Raimi was asked about possibly collaborating with Tobey Maguire on a fourth Spider-Man. Rather than shutting the outlet down, Raimi replied:
I've come to realize after making Doctor Strange that anything is possible, really anything in the Marvel universe, any team-ups. I love Tobey. I love Kirsten Dunst. I think all things are possible. I don't really have a story or a plan. I don't know if Marvel would be interested in that right now. I don't know what their thoughts are about that. I haven't really pursued that. But it sounds beautiful. Even if it wasn't a Spider-Man movie, I'd love to work with Tobey again, in a different role.
Let’s table that final sentence, because really, if Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire were willing to team up on ANY project, it would have to be a fourth Spider-Man movie. Raimi got close to mounting a fourth Spider-Man movie around 2009 and 2010. He wanted to wash the bitter taste of Spider-Man 3 out of his mouth, because while that was a financially successful movie, the artistic compromises he had to make to please the studio always left a stain on the finished product. That movie never was meant to be.
There has been chatter ever since Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield returned to the Spider-Man franchise for No Way Home that fans would love to see either (or both) of the actors continue in the tights. A Tobey Maguire Spider-Man film directed by Sam Raimi would be an instant hope for a $1 billion producer… especially if they made it a standalone finale, similar to James Mangold’s Logan for Hugh Jackman, and advertised it that way from the get go.
First thing’s first, however. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is the next upcoming Marvel movie, and tickets are on sale for the sequel as we speak. In the movie, Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) must deal with the consequences of his actions in Spider-Man: No Way Home, where he agreed to help Peter Parker (Tom Holland) reinstate his secret identity, but instead opened up portals between universes. The movie arrives in theaters on May 4.
