Fans crown Tobey Maguire best Spider-Man EVER
Sony PicturesFollowing a Twitter poll that received nearly 20,000 votes, the followers of Culture Crave have voted Tobey Maguire the best Spider-Man EVER.
It’s a great time to be a Spider-Man film fan. There are currently two animated Into the Spider-Verse films in production: Across the Spider-Verse and Beyond the Spider-Verse.
While last year, thanks Spider-Man: No Way Home, the three live-action wall-crawlers teamed up on screen, and the result was one of the most successful films in history, pulling in nearly $2 billion at the global box office.
Those actors are Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland, and to commemorate the momentous occasion, Culture Crave pitted the Spideys against each other in a Twitter poll, with the results as follows.
Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man – 28.7%
The least popular Spider-Man is also the actor who played the character on the fewest occasions. Andrew Garfield’s emo-inspired Peter Parker appeared in a pair of films: The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Along the way, he battled with Rhys Ifans’ Lizard, Jamie Foxx’s Lizard, Dane DeHaan’s Green Goblin, and Paul Giamatti’s Rhino. He also loved – and lost – Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacey.
But while both films grossed more than $700 million, Garfield received positive reviews for his work, and a third movie was planned, it never happened. Largely because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe…
Tom Holland’s Spider-Man – 35.2%
In 2015, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios announced that Spider-Man would appear in the MCU. That meant the end of Garfield’s journey (until No Way Home), and the beginning of Tom Holland’s. But his was a very different Spidey, being younger than his predecessors, and introduced as a supporting character in a Captain America film.
So we got kid Spidey debuting in Civil War in 2016 to both fight and fan-boy over a bunch of Avengers whom he’d soon be teaming up with in Infinity War and Endgame.
Holland also got his own trilogy – Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way Home – which saw his Peter Parker growing up on screening, falling for Zendaya’s MJ, and fighting Michael Keaton’s Vulture and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio as well as a whole bunch of villains from the past.
But while that trilogy concluded in moving fashion – with Peter wiped from the memories of everyone he loves – a new trilogy is nevertheless planned, with Holland likely to continue in the role.
Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man – 36.1%
Winning the poll by the narrowest of margins – less than 1% – is the first big-screen Spidey, Tobey Maguire. The young actor faced stiff competition to land the role, with Heath Ledger, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jude Law all in the running. But Maguire was ultimately cast in 2002’s Spider-Man, a film that’s often credited – alongside Blade and X-Men – with ushering in the era of the modern superhero movie.
Through his three-film tenure, Maguire portrayed Peter Parker as a normal, everyday teen, with normal, everyday problems. His Spidey, meanwhile, faced off against Willem Defoe’s Green Goblin, Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, Topher Grace’s Venom, and James Franco’s New Goblin. He also romanced Kirsten Dunst’s Mary-Jane Watson, and Bryce Dallas Howard’s Gwen Stacey.
But while the first two films were well-received, the third film was criticized for having too many villains, and for a couple of bizarre tonal shifts. Spider-Man 3 was nevertheless a hit, and scripts were written for Spider-Man 4, but when director Sam Raimi withdrew from the project, the sequel talk ended, and the character was rebooted.
But following Maguire’s appearance in No Way Home, Raimi has hinted at getting the gang back together for Part 4, so audiences might not have seen the last of their favorite Spider-Man…