The battle of the comic book multiverses is on, with Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. both competing to rope in the biggest names for their impending alternate realities. The DCEU thought they’d stolen a march when they recruited both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck to play Batman in The Flash, but if the latest reports are to be believed, then the MCU is looking to retaliate by drafting in Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield for Spider-Man 3.
Adding Jamie Foxx’s Electro and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange to the cast certainly makes it look as though a live-action Spider-Verse is incoming, and the latter reveal came with the news that the Sorcerer Supreme would be stepping into Tony Stark’s shoes as Peter Parker’s latest mentor and father figure.
However, we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones that told us Taskmaster would be the main villain in Black Widow and a new Scream movie is in the works, both of which were correct – that the current plan is also for Maguire to act as a mentor of sorts to Holland’s teenage web-slinger, which seems like a perfect way to use Sam Raimi’s Spidey if he becomes a recurring feature.
Maguire was a month away from turning 27 when he played a high school student in Spider-Man, and by the time the MCU’s threequel swings into theaters, he’ll be 46, making him the ideal age to act as the latest in a long line of father figures to enter Peter’s life. Should he stick around, then it seems the idea is for him to show up across the live-action Spider-Verse to dispel nuggets of wisdom to his younger companion, in an ironically similar fashion to how the DCEU is planning to utilize Keaton’s veteran Caped Crusader.