Time marches on. Tobey Maguire, famed Spider-Man star, has managed to complete another rotation around the sun, and we’re feeling our own mortality (and like a rewatch of the Spider-Man movies).
As one of the best Spider-Man actors, Maguire helped usher a new era of superhero movies. He played Peter Parker in Sam Raimi’s wallcrawling trilogy, and the first two especially were trendsetters. Between them, Raimi and Maguire established Peter as a smart New York City kid just trying to figure himself out, who then becomes a bona fide superhero.
Suddenly, Peter struggles to balance fighting Spider-Man villains and fostering a relationship with his crush, Mary-Jane Watson. We’re explaining one of the most popular superheroes ever, but the point is that Maguire and Raimi really managed to capture the essence of PEter and his world in a way that hadn’t been done before.
We’ve gone on record before about Spider-Man 2, one of the best Marvel movies ever made, and although Spider-Man 3 wasn’t great, Maguire’s legacy was cemented. Some years later, he returned to wallcrawling for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The 2021 blockbuster opened the Spider-Verse, uniting Maguire, Tom Holland, and Andrew Garfield, against a range off their classic baddies. While not quite a match for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, No Way Home stick tickled our nostalgic senses.
Happy birthday, Tobey! We’ll be watching your best movies to celebrate. Our Spider-Man 4 release date and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse release date guides will tell you when those new movies will arrive.