Tobey Maguire returned as Peter Parker (technically he was Peter 2) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home to great fanfare and celebration. What you might not know is that Maguire nearly came out of retirement a bit earlier than that, though, because he was considered as a voice actor for the animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
According to Screencrush Spider-Verse directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman thought about bringing Maguire back to play Peter B. Parker – the older middle-aged Spidey who Jake Johnson ended up playing – but backed out for fear of confusing audiences with too much information.
“There were many thoughts about where we could put Tobey Maguire and others,” Rothman said. “I think after this film, those thoughts might have a little more traction. But before this movie, and introducing the idea of the ‘Spider-Verse’ to the audience, I think everybody was afraid that it would just really confuse people. But wow, it would have been fun.”
The mention of “others” is particularly intriguing. Were there plans to bring in other live-action Spider-Men? It certainly sounds like those conversations happened even if nothing came of them.
Perhaps Tom Holland will appear in Spider-Verse 2 when it swings into theatres next year. The Uncharted star’s been pushing to appear in the upcoming movie for a while now along with his No Way Home co-star Zendaya.
Speaking with Syfy Wire the pair were asked about Spider-Verse. “Love them and I’m just waiting for the phone call. Guys, call us. Put us in your movie, we want to be in it,” Zendaya said. Holland followed up by revealing he actually had been approached to appear in it but hadn’t heard anything about it since.“Amy [Pascal] actually asked me on the set of this movie and no one has come back to me,” Holland said.
If you love the Spider-Verse check out our article ranking the Spider-Man actors.