“I’m not going to take all the blame if we go down in flames”: Tobey Maguire Was Never Worried About His Spider-Man Being Compared to the Worst Batman Movie

Before Spider-Man came into play, Tobey Maguire was not all that famous in Hollywood despite having worked with impressive directors like Lasse Hallström and Terry Gilliam. It was Sam Raimi’s work that elevated the actor into an icon of the modern comic book universe and revolutionized the CBM industry.

Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man [Credit: Sony Pictures]

Everything changed in 2002 after Tobey Maguire unmasked himself to reveal a complex, conflicted, and layered Spider-Man. Beating out other fan favorites like Jude Law and Heath Ledger for the part, the relatively unpopular 26-year-old actor then established a superhero format that became the norm for the coming era of CBM adaptations.

As for the live-action superhero films of the 20th century, they were already ancient history – except for the Earth-789 classics.

Maguire’s Spider-Man vs Clooney’s Batman

Batman & Robin (1997) [Credit: Warner Bros.]

George Clooney‘s era as the Caped Crusader was perhaps one of the most unironically laughable rock-bottom moments in DC history, even considering the campy insanity of Adam West’s live-action adaptation from the mid-1960s. However, Batman & Robin did not end Hollywood’s obsession with churning out superhero films year after year.

Soon after the 1997 DC film, Marvel launched Blade in 1998, Fox followed up with X-Men in 2000, and ultimately Sony’s Spider-Man in 2002. The Tobey Maguire film was neither heralded as a saving grace of the comic book movie industry nor mocked and criticized like the current superhero films from Sony.

In part, this had to do with the audience’s lack of expectations from the industry which was not yet saturated by an over-indulgence in the franchise. Maguire knew that Clooney’s disastrous results after Batman & Robin could not negatively impact his debut as Spider-Man. In an interview with cinema.com, the actor claimed:

The lack of competitive spirit that seems so ingrained in the Marvel and DC films of today seemed almost non-existent when Maguire’s film premiered. It isn’t surprising that the studio, the director, and the lead star of the movie were least worried about being compared to the worst Batman movie of all time.

Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man was a class apart!

Tobey Maguire in an iconic scene from Spider-Man 2 [Credit: Sony Pictures]

The Aughts were the pinnacle of comic book adaptations. From Fox’s X-Men franchise, Warner Bros.’ Dark Knight trilogy, Sony’s Spider-Man trilogy, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the early 2000s gave rise to it all. But even aside from the iconic cast of the X-Men films or Christopher Nolan’s vision for Batman and Joker, there was a simplicity to Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man that was missing from the established comic book franchise.

Even before he barreled into the limelight alongside a veteran cast featuring Willem Dafoe and Kirsten Dunst, Tobey Maguire knew how iconic Sam Raimi’s film was destined to be. Claiming to be one of “the most down-to-earth, most carefully drawn, and least plastic of comic book figures,” the web-slinging Spider-Man was already an icon of the superhero genre.

Moreover, upon reading Raimi’s script, Maguire found that – “There is a lot of serious subtext to the character if you want to look for that.” Spider-Man was not a monotonous, one-dimensional figure of the comic book universe. The character that Sony had in their gallery was not simply blinded by vengeance or guided by righteousness.

Rather, Maguire believed that the friendly neighborhood superhero had “much more depth [to him] than you do with Batman or Superman. Spider-Man was created as a darker, more conflicted character…” That is what made Tobey Maguire’s characterization so classic and Sam Raimi’s understanding of Spider-Man made his trilogy stand apart from the rest of the CBM universe.

Spider-Man is streaming on Disney+.