Sam Raimi Opened Up About Shelving ‘Spider-Man 4’ and the Potential of a Tobey Maguire Return

Sam Raimi is returning to the world of Marvel with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and while it is fitting that he’s bringing Doctor Strange to life (as he does famously love the character, as we know from the references in his Spider-Man movies), it isn’t surprising that people are asking him about Peter Parker. Raimi directed the Tobey Maguire trilogy that helped change the game for the superhero genre, and while it ended with a movie that many declared they hated, it is still a beloved franchise.

Talking with MoviePilot in gearing up for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Raimi talked a bit about what happened with plans for Spider-Man 4 and the response to Spider-Man 3.

“We had a script years ago and we were actively working in pre-production,” Raimi recalled. “It became a thing where there was a deadline and I didn’t want to make something that was less than great. I thought I had compromised a bit on ‘Spider-Man 3’ and I wanted to really pay the audience back on ‘Spider-Man 4’ and make the best Spider-Man of all. And I couldn’t get the script together in that amount of time. So I told Sony, ‘I think it’s best if you go ahead with your planned alternate Spider-Man storyline because I don’t want to let the audience down.’”

But that doesn’t mean he’s done with Spidey. He talked a bit about whether or not he’d return to the Spider-Man world and said: “I didn’t think it was possible but after jumping back in with the Multiverse, I realized that anything is possible now so I’m completely open to it.” 

Raimi also shared a similar sentiment about Spider-Man 3 with SlashFilm’s Jacob Hall.

All of this leads to the question of whether or not we need another Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie or if Raimi would direct any kind of Spidey flick in the future.

Should we go back?

To be quite honest, I do not think that we should go back to the Raimi-verse when it comes to Spider-Man. I also don’t think we should have another Spider-Man standalone movie with Andrew Garfield, either. At this point, we have a new Spider-Man, and that should be our main Peter Parker. If Garfield or Maguire wanted to return and be the Spidey for some of Sony’s villain movies, that’d be incredible, but I don’t think we need to return to the Peter Parkers that Maguire and Garfield played in their own movies, especially since Tom Holland is still our Spider-Man.

If Raimi wanted to come back to making Spider-Man movies, I think it’d be fun, but I don’t want it to switch back to the Maguire universe. We’ve all had our nostalgic moment with Tobey Maguire thanks to No Way Home, and that should be a nice sendoff to his Peter. Having Sam Raimi back for Multiverse of Madness, though? That’s exciting, and I hope that there are more Marvel movies in his future. I just don’t want to go back to the Tobey Maguire universe again.

(image: Marvel Entertainment)