SPIDERMAN: NO WAY HOME’s decision to bring back Tobey Maguire has sparked much fan excitement; and Maguire himself matches fan enthusiasm with his own.
“When they called initially, I was like finally!” Maguire said of his return (via Marvel). “I got the call and was immediately open about coming to do this. Not without nerves – you know, ‘What will this look like and what will the experience be?’ But to get to show up with beautiful, talented, creative people and play together? It’s just like, ‘Yes!” It’s fun and exciting.’”
“I love these films and I love all of the different series,” Maguire continued. “If these guys called me and said, ‘Would you show up tonight to hang out and goof around?’ or ‘Would you show up to do this movie or read a scene or do a Spider-Man thing?’ it would be a ‘yes!’ Because why wouldn’t I want to do that?”
As Matt John wrote in a January 27, 2023 article for Game Rant: “What made Maguire’s role in Spider-Man: No Way Home special – and by extension Garfield’s – was that his Spider-Man played a vital role in the climax of the movie.”
Though as Variety’s Zack Sharf points out, “Sony has yet to announce any concrete plans for its next live-action “Spiderman” movie”, given the success of NO WAY HOME, fan base excitement, and the desire of the studio to follow up on its success, it is likely that fans will get much of what their looking for in the not too distant future.
With Maguire’s outspokenness on how he’d be thrilled to “Reprise [his] Spiderman Role Again”, this development seems barely short of a certainty.
Movieguide®’s review of Maguire’s SPIDER-MAN, which was nominated as one of the Best Movies for Mature Audiences at the Movieguide® Award Gala, reads:
SPIDER-MAN opens with Peter Parker telling the audience that this is a movie about a girl: Peter Parker’s neighbor, Mary Jane. A genetically engineered spider bites Peter, giving him super powers, and a family tragedy convinces him that he has to use his powers to protect the innocent. Peter’s transformation attracts Mary Jane. Meanwhile, the multi-millionaire father of Peter’s romantic rival becomes the Green Goblin, a schizophrenic with superhuman strength. The Green Goblin decides to destroy Peter the Spider-man and everything that Peter loves.
SPIDER-MAN is very high octane, with lots of tense action and lots of exciting adventure, so much so that the premise (remember this story is about a girl) gets lost in the middle of the movie. The plot picks up rather quickly, however, and, better than that, there are many positive moral and redemptive messages, including the Lord’s Prayer, lot’s of “God bless you-s” and references to biblical wisdom. Tobey Maguire makes Spider-man come alive. Willem Dafoe has some wonderful conflicted moments in this movie, but sometimes slips into mannerisms. Kirsten Dunst is good as Mary Jane. The action violence is too intense for younger children, however.
