Having been absent from our screens entirely since 2014’s biographical chess drama Pawn Sacrifice, Tobey Maguire made a triumphant return to live-action filmmaking in Spider-Man: No Way Home, with his veteran Peter Parker offering a more grounded veteran counterpoint to the youthful exuberance of Tom Holland and the sardonic wit of Andrew Garfield.
The interactions between the trio were everything fans hoped they would be and more, with the back-cracking scene between Maguire and Garfield bringing the house down, especially when you remember that a serious back injury almost forced the former to drop out of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, with Jake Gyllenhaal waiting in the wings as his replacement.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, No Way Home writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers revealed that Maguire suggested some alterations to the script, notably outlining that he didn’t want to reveal too much about what his Peter had been up to in the fourteen years since we last saw him in Spider-Man 3.
“”They had thoughts, and it was really interesting and helpful to see their thoughts. No one knows the character as well as — or gives as much thought to the character — as someone who has to then embody it and sell it. … It definitely shaped what we did.
They had great ideas that really elevated everything we were going for and added layers and an arc and we really actually started honing into the idea that these two guys were really helping Tom’s Peter on his journey to becoming who he ends up becoming. There’s a crucial, moral moment that they help him get through in the climax of the movie. So much of that was brought by Tobey and Andrew’s ideas and shaping of what they thought their characters could bring to this story.”
As expected, fans are now clamoring for Maguire and Sam Raimi to reunite for a Logan-esque Spider-Man 4, which feels a whole lot less likely to happen than Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man 3, given how significantly the O.G. Spidey has scaled back his workload in the last decade.