It’s 2007. Anticipation builds for the release of Spider-Man 3, the third chapter in director Sam Raimi’s blockbuster trilogy starring Tobey Maguire as the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler and Kirsten Dunst as his fiancée-to-be. Moody teaser posters show Peter Parker, perched atop a building in the rain, clad in an inky black symbiote suit. Finally, trailers swing into theaters with such films as Superman Returns and 300, teasingthe greatest battle lies within. As Spider-Man (Maguire) faces his dark side, he’ll battle a trio of sinister supervillains: the New Goblin (James Franco), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), and Venom (Topher Grace).
Videos by ComicBook.com
In a trailer rewind throwback to 2007, Sony Pictures reuploaded the HD official trailer for Spider-Man 3 on May 4, the film’s 15th anniversary. The re-released trailer reminds fans that Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is on sale at Spidey20th.com in celebration of the first film’s 20th anniversary.
The trailer shows Spider-mania gripping New York City as Peter Parker confides in his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) plans to propose to the girl of his dreams: Mary Jane Watson (Dunst). But when police Captain George Stacy (James Cromwell) reveals that Uncle Ben’s true killer has escaped prison, Spider-Man bonds with the alien symbiote that will transform Eddie Brock (Grace) into the vengeful Venom. “Every hero has a choice to face the darkness or be consumed by it,” the trailer warns, with MJ reminding Peter: “Everybody needs help sometimes. Even Spider-Man.”
As the black-suited Spider-Man hunts down his uncle’s murderer, now the super-powered Sandman after a freak accident, Harry Osborn (Franco) seeks to avenge the death of his father — the original Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe).
“Revenge is like a poison. It can take us over,” Aunt May tells her nephew. “And before you know it, can turn you into something ugly.”
Seduced by the symbiote, Peter Parker battles the enemy within himself — and the enemies uniting to destroy Spider-Man. “The suit. The power. It feels good,” Spider-Man says. “But you lose yourself to it.”
Spider-Man 3 swung into theaters on May 4, 2007, grossing nearly $895 million worldwide to become the third highest-grossing film of the year (behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). Despite mixed reviews, Spider-Man 3 was once Sony’s highest-grossing film, a record since topped several times over, including the releases of Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
“It’s a movie that just didn’t work very well,” Raimi told Nerdist in 2015 of the “awful” Spider-Man 3. “I tried to make it work, but I didn’t really believe in all the characters, so that couldn’t be hidden from people who loved Spider-Man.”
“If the director doesn’t love something, it’s wrong of them to make it when so many other people love it. I think [raising the stakes after Spider-Man 2] was the thinking going into it, and I think that’s what doomed us,” Raimi continued. “I should’ve just stuck with the characters and the relationships and progressed them to the next step and not tried to top the bar.”
Following Maguire reprising the Spider-Man role opposite Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home — and Raimi’s own return to the superhero realm in Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — Raimi has said he’s “completely open” to making a sequel with Maguire returning, but there are no plans for a Spider-Man 4.
