Director Sam Raimi has ruled out making a belated fourth film for Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man despite once having plans to do so, as his versions of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson now “have gone elsewhere.”
Speaking to Screenrant, Raimi said that he still loved the Spider-Man franchise but could not see a way he would return to direct another entry himself, despite the enduring popularity of Maguire’s incarnation and calls from fans for more following the character’s reappearance in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.
That film featured Maguire’s Spider-Man temporarily crossing over into the MCU and meeting Tom Holland’s iteration, before returning to his own universe — and in an earlier version of the script, there were reportedly plans for Kirsten Dunst to reprise her role as Mary Jane as well.
“For a brief time I was handed the torch to carry on after 40 years of Spider-Man comics,” Raimi said of his time working on the franchise. “And then after my three movies, I handed the torch off to someone else. And I think they’ve got to keep running with the storyline and the audience that is now following the torchbearer.”
Raimi had once planned a further full trilogy of Spider-Man movies starring Tobey Maguire, and reportedly had lined up John Malkovich to play Vulture, Anne Hathaway as Black Cat, and Bruce Campbell as Mysterio to appear across the new films.
Alas, Sony ultimately decided to cancel work on the new trilogy amid disagreements over the film’s script and Raimi’s schedule. The company then opted to instead reboot the franchise with Marc Webb directing Spider-Man’s new Andrew Garfield incarnation.
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Now, Raimi has suggested he’d be unable to tell more stories with his versions of Spider-Man and Mary Jane as their lives have continued off-screen (while Marvel Studios has now come up with its own versions of Vulture and Mysterio to face up against Tom Holland’s Spider-Man). Because of that, Raimi has said it wouldn’t “be right for me to go back and try and resurrect my version of this story” and that he had been able to “pass the torch happily.”
Marvel fans still expect they haven’t seen the last of Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, however, with a further return for the actor expected, though certainly not yet confirmed, in Avengers: Secret Wars, Marvel’s upcoming climactic conclusion to the MCU’s Multiverse Saga.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
