Sam Raimi never got to make a Spider-Man 4, but he wanted to. After Spider-Man 3, Sony immediately began developing a fourth film, which would have starred Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker and Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson. At one point, the movie was going to feature the Vulture, played by John Malkovich, and the Black Cat, played by Anne Hathaway. Eventually, though, the project fell apart, and Sony rebooted their Spider-Man saga for the first time with Andrew Garfield as The Amazing Spider-Man.
Raimi left he world of superheroes after that, but now he’s back for the first time in 15 years with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And that, coupled with the return of Maguire’s Spider-Man in Spider-Man: No Way Home, has fans speculating about the chance to finally see Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 come to fruition. And Raimi himself says such a concept “sounds beautiful”
That’s what he told Fandango in an interview about Multiverse of Madness. Here was his full response:
I’ve come to realize after making Doctor Strange that anything is possible, really anything in the Marvel universe, any team-ups. I love Tobey. I love Kirsten Dunst. I think all things are possible. I don’t really have a story or a plan. I don’t know if Marvel would be interested in that right now. I don’t know what their thoughts are about that. I haven’t really pursued that. But it sounds beautiful. Even if it wasn’t a Spider-Man movie, I’d love to work with Tobey again, in a different role.
Maguire is now 46 and hasn’t publicly expressed much interest in making another Spider-Man, so a full-fledged return to the role seems a bit unlikely — unless they adapted something like the Renew Your Vows comic, which was set in an alternate timeline where Peter and Mary Jane got married and had a daughter who also had super powers. But hey: the new Marvel multiverse actually makes such a thing plausible, so it’s not the craziest notion in the world.
Or here’s another even wilder idea: Andrew Garfield is younger than Maguire at 38, and he’s already made it very clear he would want to make another Spider-Man movie. So how about another Amazing Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield, but this one directed by Sam Raimi? I’d pay to see that film.
In the meantime, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens in theaters on May 6, 2022. Tickets for the film are on sale now.
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