{"id":514693,"date":"2025-10-20T15:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/514693\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T15:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:24:12","slug":"nostalgia-loop-its-time-for-sony-to-get-tobey-maguire-and-andrew-garfield-back-in-their-spidey-suits-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/514693\/","title":{"rendered":"Nostalgia loop: it\u2019s time for Sony to get Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield back in their Spidey suits | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In many ways the entirety of geek culture \u2013 certainly as far as the movies are concerned \u2013 is built on giving the people what they want. The Flash exhumed Michael Keaton\u2019s Batman, but left him drifting through the end-of-days haze of a dying cinematic universe. Hugh Jackman\u2019s Wolverine returned for one last hurrah in Deadpool & Wolverine<\/a>, even though we already had his last hurrah in Logan. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness brought back Patrick Stewart\u2019s Professor X for the umpteenth time, then promptly shredded him into psychic confetti.<\/p>\n

And then there was Spider-Man: No Way Home, a movie that mainly seemed to exist to remind us that the original Sony Spidey films were really rather good in places. Has there ever been a better cinematic Spider-Man villain than Willem Dafoe\u2019s Green Goblin? Did any of the Marvel films give us an antagonist with the same startling blend of pathos and menace as that delivered by Alfred Molina\u2019s Doc Oc? And what about Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield<\/a>, the two wall-crawlers we never thought we\u2019d see again, who somehow turned a fan-service cameo into an elegy for the superhero genre itself?<\/p>\n

So buzzy was that crowd-pleasing film that it seemed as if the pair were destined to return, if not in continuing adventures within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then surely in episodes that followed on from their own brutally curtailed timelines in the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb films. But it\u2019s now been the best part of four years since Maguire and Garfield became viral saints of multiverse sentimentality \u2013 digital messiahs for a genre already gasping for air beneath the weight of its own nostalgic excess.<\/p>\n

In the intervening period the duo have been treated like ghosts at the banquet, condemned to drift around the edges of Sony\u2019s cinematic multiverse. Madame Web<\/a>, Morbius and Kraven the Hunter were designed to make audiences forget about Spider-Man and embrace the brilliance of his supporting cast. They all failed.<\/p>\n

Ready to come onboard? Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in Spider-Man, 2002. Photograph: Moviestore\/REX Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Yet rumours have been swirling that Sony\u2019s Spider-Man<\/a> Universe is dead in the water. The studio will play some part in the forthcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but the Tom Holland films \u2013 technically joint productions \u2013 have always felt spiritually closer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Which leaves Sony out in the cold, condemned to release the occasional animated masterpiece about Miles Morales, while remaining absent from the live-action arena on the big screen.<\/p>\n

Which is where Maguire and Garfield really ought to come in. Sony may have until recently been far too deep into tales of clairvoyant web-weavers and tragically misunderstood bat scientists to admit audiences only care about Spider-Man. But surely in the absence of any viable alternative options, this stuff is at least worth a look? Maguire told Marvel.com in 2023<\/a> that \u201cit would be a \u2018yes\u2019\u201d if he were ever asked to reprise the role, adding: \u201cBecause why wouldn\u2019t I want to do that?\u201d His co-star in the 00s films, Kirsten Dunst, waxed lyrical earlier this month about her fondness<\/a> for the idea of returning as Mary Jane Watson, perhaps in a new episode that would see her as mother to Peter Parker\u2019s children. This week, Garfield told fans hankering for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 that he doesn\u2019t believe a new episode is ever going to be a thing, but added<\/a>: \u201cSweet of you to want it to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sense is that if someone actually bothered to come up with a passable script, they would all come onboard. The reality is that the superhero movie landscape \u2013 and in particular, Sony\u2019s increasingly small corner of it \u2013 has rarely looked more desperate for a hit, even as DC finally shows signs of life. Marvel\u2019s once unshakeable formula now feels close to exhausted. Deadpool & Wolverine, which triumphed at the box office this summer, succeeded largely because it weaponised nostalgia with a wink and a body count.<\/p>\n

In that context, bringing back Maguire or Garfield wouldn\u2019t just be another exercise in fan service, it might be the last trick the genre has left that anyone would actually cheer for. Yes, it would be shamelessly nostalgic, a web spun entirely from deja vu and dimensional crossovers, but Sony has learned the hard way that giving audiences what they never asked for \u2013 and would really rather have never witnessed \u2013 is not a smart move.<\/p>\n

The irony is that new Spider-Man films starring old Spider-Men may now be Sony\u2019s best hope of wringing something worthwhile from the last strand of Spidey IP it still controls. Because even if the result ended up another multiversal tangle of familiar faces and recycled heartstrings, there remains a hankering for this kind of deluxe, limited-edition nostalgia loop \u2013 not least because we keep being told we can\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In many ways the entirety of geek culture \u2013 certainly as far as the movies are concerned \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-514693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115407189829339711","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}