Spider-Man has been the most successful comic book movie franchise in Hollywood history by far. The first film's opening gross of $114 million was so iconic that Entourage set it as the benchmark for their fictional Aquaman project. With domestic grosses in the $400 million range, let alone worldwide, even the X-Men, Batmen and Supermen can only halve that.
Director Sam Raimi has gone to great lengths to ground each film in human issues, so it's not just guys in costumes fighting it out. Perhaps some of the other comic book movies don't offer such fertile material, though Spider-Man actor Tobey Maguire has some favorites himself.
"I really liked Batman Begins," he said. "The first two original Superman movies were great. Tim Burton’s Batman was great. There are a lot of really good movies out there and we are just trying to make the best films we can and hopefully be peers to those other great ones."
Spider-Man 3 may be the last time Tobey Maguire dons the red and blue tights, though nobody has ruled out Spider-Man 4. Just in case, the film wraps up important story threads from the trilogy. Peter Parker finally has it out with Harry Osborn (James Franco) over the death of Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin. Peter decides to marry Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), his high school sweetheart. He finally comes to terms with his role in the death of Uncle Ben (Cliff. Robertson). All this and web-slinging battles too.
In Spider-Man 3, Peter Parker discovers a mysterious dark substance has turned his suit black, and has brought forth a darker side of Parker and Spidey that had not been seen before. Peter begins to give into this new dark personality, starts to abandon the ones he loves the most. The black substance also takes aim at rival Bugle photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), turning Brock into Venom, a dangerous foe that mirrors everything Spider-Man can do. He also begins to use other women against Mary Jane.
"I had a good time on the movie," he told me at the film's press junket. "I love working with the cast and the crew and especially with Sam so it was great coming back. I really felt like in this movie it was definitely the continuing story of Peter Parker and the other characters, but we were exploring new territory for the character, so it was exciting for me to venture into some different areas."
It may be the darkest the series has gotten, but the message is still "with great power comes great responsibility." Producer Laura Ziskin feels that watching Maguire play the character every step of the way has created a unique character journey. Over three films, we've watched Peter Parker grow up.
"All of the movies are in some way or another identity stories," she said. "Who am I? I’m Spider-Man. Who am I? I’m this nerdy kid. Fate intervenes, this thing happens, how do I deal with it? The second movie is okay, now this thing happened to me but it’s keeping me from having the things I want. What do I do? Always coming back to that, he has to accept his fate and learn to live with it.”
She continues, “This third movie being at the end of the second movie, he kind of got everything he wanted and that seemed like a really fun place to start and different from where we’ve been before. It felt like it would be fun to give this nerdy kid who was always longing, reaching for something, to put him in a position where he kind of thinks, 'Oh, I kind of have what I want. Gee, this feels kind of good.' And he becomes, as people often do in those circumstances, careless. And it opens him up obviously to his dark side. So it’s been really a treat to explore over the course of three movies, the growth of the character."
And it's dark with a wink. Aside from two psychologically meaner scenes, much of Peter's darkness manifests as goofy attempts to be cool, trying to show off some dance moves. Like the ultimate message of Spider-Man, it ends with hope as Peter learns forgiveness in ways that nobody wants to spoil for audiences.
"I think there is a lot of resolution in this movie for all three movies for many characters and different storylines," said Maguire. "I don’t like talking too much about the end of the movie or what happens, so I don’t want to take away from anyone’s experience of seeing the movie. I think trailers nowadays give them enough information. But, as I said, I think there were a lot of storylines kind of concluded in this film that were sort of in process in the other movies."
When Raimi first cast Maguire as Peter Parker, fans may have been concerned that he was relatively unknown and hadn't proved he could handle an epic character.
"The strength of the Spider-man comic book, for me, is that he is a real kid," said Raimi before the first film opened. "He’s not Superman from Krypton or Batman who’s a millionaire but he’s a kid like us who’s got acne, the girls don’t want him, he’s broke. Basically, he’s one of us. So, Tobey Maguire is not like this handsome deep throated Tom Cruise sexy guy. He’s this very grounded real actor. So I thought that’s the best thing, to get somebody who can make us believe it’s really happening and it’s happening to us. He’s small and he makes things believable."
With the success of the films, Maguire is now forever identified with Spidey. It has not hurt his career, having made diverse films like Seabiscuit and The Good German in between blockbusters. "I’m not really concerned about it as long as I have other opportunities to make other types of movies," he said. "Certainly I’m identified with this film or with this character and I don’t think that’s going to go away anytime soon. I’m not fighting that or resisting it. As long as I get to make some other movies, I’m fine with that."
The spiritual rewards are priceless. Maguire now reaches a fan base of kids that never would have known him from The Ice Storm or Wonder Boys. "First of all, I love kids and it’s a lot of fun interacting with kids, but it’s a little confusing sometimes because I want to take the lead from parents. Sometimes parents will want to explain that I’m an actor and sort of the reality of the situation and other parents like to keep the illusion alive. So that’s always a tricky spot, the younger they are especially."
Sometimes honesty is not the best policy, at least for maintaining one's hero status. "I did have a thing where at the time I thought the right thing to do was to explain. A kid asks me and I’m honest about it. They said, ‘Well, how do you do that?’ Well, we take the building, the vertical building and we turn it on its back and I’m crawling across it.' And the kid just was like, really bummed out. I was just like shattering his whole thing and then I had to work to get back in there. But we ended up hugging and him telling me he was going to miss me and it was really sweet. It ended up being a really sweet thing, but for a while I felt really bad about it."
Maguire almost had to give up the Spidey suit before Spider-Man 2 when a back problem flared up. A pre-existing condition became worse while he made Seabiscuit, leading to questions about his ability to perform stunts. There was talk of recasting the role with Jake Gyllenhaal, but Maguire persevered.
"I felt it was my responsibility to disclose my back discomfort to the studio, to the insurance company and to the filmmakers, which I did," said Maguire after making Spider-Man 2. "I understood that they have a multi multi-million dollar investment, that they had a start date and an entire crew hired for it, and everything was rushing towards a date five weeks away, to start this picture. Then I went in with the stunt guys and worked on a few of the stunts to see how I was going to do. After I reported the stuff to them and told them about my condition, my back started getting better. I did the film and it didn’t bother me throughout the whole filming."
Better harnesses and increased experience with wirework allowed Maguire to handle the strain of the film's stunts. Now that he made it through Spidey part three, fans are actually asking him to return for another. Maguire just likes to keep his options open.
"Well, if there was a great story there and there was something interesting for Peter Parker to do, like a storyline that I loved for Peter Parker and Sam [Raimi[ was involved and the right cast was in place, at that point I would consider it."
Now that he is a father, with a newborn daughter, Maguire may have to back off the dangerous stunt work. A fan of adventure sports in real life, fiancé Jennifer Meyer is already putting restrictions on. "I will do anything pretty much,” Maguire explains. “I would consider skydiving, but now my fiancé is like ‘You are not sky diving.’ And it would be a shame if something happened and I missed my daughter’s life. That would be a drag."
With no future projects lined up, family could also be a consideration in Maguire's career. "I really don’t know right now. I think that the greatest effect it will have is on what the locations of movies are, more so than what the content is although it may affect my decision about the content as well. I just hope to have opportunities to make good movies with good filmmakers. I really don’t have a specific path or direction I want to go in or even the types or roles or movies that I want to do. I want to do everything with great people."
Ultimately, that's why he took on this major franchise in the first place. "I did Spider-man not because it was an event film, although that was part of the attraction. I wouldn’t have done it unless I felt as passionately about it as I did working with Ang Lee on The Ice Storm and Ride with the Devil and Curtis Hanson on Wonder Boys and Lasse Hallstrom on Cider House Rules. I feel like this character is as strong a character as any of those and his journey is as interesting for me to play and more challenging to blueprint the entire role than any of those other movies actually."
Explains Director Sam Raimi, “When developing this third installment, we asked ourselves, ‘What does this young man still have to learn?’ “We placed him in situations where he’d be forced to confront his absences of character – obstacles that, in previous stories, he might not have been able to surmount. In this way, he would either be defeated or grow into the heroic person who might be capable of overcoming these obstacles. As the depth of our characters grow, they become richer human beings and can achieve more than in the previous films.”
“In the climax, Peter has to put aside his prideful self. He must put aside his desire for vengeance,” Raimi continues. “He has to learn that we are all sinners and that none of us can hold ourselves above another. In this story, he has to learn forgiveness.”
Spider-Man 3 opens wide on Thursday, May 4, 2007. Don’t miss it!
