Doctor Strange 2 Director Sam Raimi: No Plans to Make Spider-Man 4 With Tobey Maguire

Sam Raimi isn’t planning to take another swing at Spider-Man. 20 years after directing the 2002 superhero blockbuster that spawned a blockbuster trilogy with stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, the Evil Dead and Army of Darkness filmmaker returns to Marvel for his first entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Raimi, who developed a sequel to 2007’s Spider-Man 3 before dropping out so Sony could reboot with Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man, has said while promoting Doctor Strange 2 he’s “completely open” to reuniting with Maguire on Spider-Man 4. Maguire recently reprised his superhero role opposite Garfield and Tom Holland in the multiversal Spider-Man: No Way Home.

“I currently don’t have any plans to make Spider-Man 4. And they’re so successful with the new Spider-Man series that I don’t know if that’s gonna happen or not,” Raimi told Screen Rant. “I haven’t pursued that.” 

Holland is expected to return to the MCU in a fourth installment of the rebooted Spider-Man franchise co-produced by Sony Pictures and Disney’s Marvel Studios. The Jon Watts-directed No Way Home scored the biggest box office of the pandemic era, grossing nearly $1.9 billion worldwide since its December release in theaters. 

In 2013, Raimi said he had “the most amicable and undramatic of breakups” with studio executives who decided to jettinson Spider-Man 4 in favor of a reboot putting a younger Peter Parker back in high school. Plans for the never-made sequel included classic comic book villains Vulture and Kraven the Hunter. 

“We had a deadline and I couldn’t get the story to work on a level that I wanted it to work. I was very unhappy with Spider-Man 3, and I wanted to make Spider-Man 4 to end on a very high note, the best Spider-Man of them all,” Raimi told Vulture in 2013, two years after the planned May 2011 release date of Spider-Man 4. “But I couldn’t get the script together in time, due to my own failings, and I said to Sony, ‘I don’t want to make a movie that is less than great, so I think we shouldn’t make this picture. Go ahead with your reboot, which you’ve been planning anyway.’ And [then-Sony co-chairman] Amy Pascal said, ‘Thank you. Thank you for not wasting the studio’s money, and I appreciate your candor.’” 

Because the Multiverse opened to bring back Maguire in No Way Home, the 46-year-old actor’s first time suiting up as Spider-Man in nearly fifteen years, Raimi “realized that anything is possible,” he recently told Moviepilot. “I’m completely open to [directing Spider-Man 4].” 

Sony has not announced plans to bring back Maguire or Garfield after the crossover with Holland in Spider-Man: No Way Home. 

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Xochitl Gomez, with Michael Stühlbarg and Rachel McAdams, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is playing exclusively in theaters on May 6.