Sam Raimi Isn’t Directing Tom Holland’s Spider-Man 4: Tobey Maguire Would “Break My Neck”

Sam Raimi returns to the Marvel realm in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but the director won’t take another swing at Spider-Man — at least not without Tobey Maguire. Raimi and Maguire teamed on Sony’s first Spider-Man trilogy, starting with Spider-Man in 2002 and reuniting for Spider-Man 2 in 2004 and Spider-Man 3 in 2007. A Spider-Man 4, originally dated for May 2011 with Maguire and Raimi returning, was abandoned before Sony rebooted with Andrew Garfield replacing Maguire as the younger Peter Parker. It looked like the end of the Raimi-verse.

But then the Multiverse opened. Maguire swung across the Spider-Verse and into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Sony and Marvel Studios’ crossover movie Spider-Man: No Way Home, joined by Raimi-verse villains Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church). 

The threequel united three generations of Spider-Men, teaming Maguire and Garfield’s variant Peter Parkers with Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man, with its blockbuster box office reigniting fan interest in the canceled Spider-Man 4 and The Amazing Spider-Man 3. Sony so far has only confirmed that it is actively developing a Spider-Man: No Way Home sequel with Holland starring and Kevin Feige producing for Disney’s Marvel Studios. 

With Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home director Jon Watts potentially exiting the franchise after No Way Home, will Raimi revisit the wall-crawler on Holland’s untitled Spider-Man 4? 

“I love Spider-Man,” Raimi told The Los Angeles Times. “And I love Tom Holland in the role. [But] if I made a Spider-Man movie, it would probably have to be with Tobey or he’d break my neck.”

The Doctor Strange 2 director added he “loved No Way Home,” calling the mega-blockbuster “a complete audience thrill ride. The crowd I was with were ooh-ing and ahh-ing, and it had a great heart to it. It was great seeing my old friends again.”

Raimi previously revealed he “currently [doesn’t] have any plans” to reunite with Maguire on a revived Spider-Man 4, saying in a recent interview, “[Sony’s] so successful with the new Spider-Man series that I don’t know if that’s gonna happen or not. I haven’t pursued that.” 

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, with Michael Stühlbarg, and Rachel McAdams, Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now playing only in theaters.