By the time the third installment of the 'Spider-Man' series came along, things were taking a turn for the worse for Maguire.
Tobey Maguire was in the first set of Spider-Man movies and it is not a stretch to say it made him an A-list star. He has had a successful acting career since the age of 13 but after the Spider-Man franchise came to an end, the spotlight was taken away from him as well. But not many people know what happened to him and why he was sidelined. The fourth Spider-Man film did not happen and instead, the franchise was rebooted with Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man series. Following this, Tom Holland stepped into the shoes of Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Maguire was riding on the high of the success of the first two Spider-Man films that were well-received by the critics and audience alike. He already had a great start to his career when he landed a role in the 1993 movie This Boy's Life that also starred Robert De Niro and the then-unknown Leonardo DiCaprio who continues to be his close friend to this day. He then had a break with his roles in films like Pleasantville (1998), Ride with the Devil (1999), The Cider House Rules (1999) before Spider-Man solidified his stardom. But by the time the third installment of the Spider-Man series came along, things had taken a turn for the worse.
Director Sam Raimi admitted Spider-Man 3's shortcomings in a 2014 interview and stated, "I messed up plenty with the third Spider-Man, so people hated me for years. They still hate me for it." He added, "It's a movie that just didn't work very well." He wanted to make up for it by making a fourth, better sequel but it did not come to pass after Sony scrapped the project.
Maguire also made it easy for the crew and production team to put an end to the franchise. First, he increased the rate of his compensation for the third film after he felt his sequel compensation didn’t reflect the more than $30 million that producer Laura Ziskin earned, reported Variety. But Maguire’s reps were able to resolve that issue to everyone’s satisfaction in 2003. But still, by the following month, the actor was almost let go because of this behavior during pre-production. He incessantly complained about back pain, something everyone was aware of before but he was using it to leverage negotiations which the studios did not appreciate. They started to feel that his behavior would cost so much more time and money that it could jeopardize the film. They almost recast him to be replaced by Jake Gyllenhaal, who also happened to be dating his ex, Kristen Dunst at the time.
This reputation of Maguire, as a demanding actor who is difficult to work with, seems to have played a role in him being sidelined. "Tobey and I had a bit of a rough time, yeah. I mean, we're good now. It was a difficult movie," his former co-star James Franco had once stated. But he did try to salvage his career after all the bad press and move past his superhero image. He has been in some iconic films including Seabiscuit (2003), The Good German (2006), Brothers (2009), and The Great Gatsby (2013), and some exciting new work recently as well. Now, he is 46 and seems to be making amends and attempts to make a more solid comeback to mainstream films in Hollywood. He has also founded his own production company, Material Pictures.
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