After years of lying dormant, a new update has fans thinking Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 4 may be more likely to happen. From 2001 to 2007, Tobey Maguire was the one and only big-screen Spider-Man. The now 50-year-old actor led three Spidey films directed by The Evil Dead director Sam Raimi. However, as the team started developing a potential fourth movie, progress halted. Raimi eventually left the franchise, citing creative differences, and Sony Pictures opted to reboot the wall-crawler rather than forge on without the original filmmaker.
This has left a Tobey Maguire-led Spider-Man 4 as one of the most-asked-for pipe dream projects from comic book movie fans. For years, it seemed like an impossibility; however, after Maguire returned to his iconic Marvel role as a part of Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: No Way Home, that hope was rekindled. No news on a potential fourth film has been officially announced, but there is at least one person in Hollywood trying to make it happen.
The Batman writer Mattson Tomlin has been rather vocal as of late on his personal X account, telling multiple fans that he is "trying" to make Spider-Man 4 starring Tobey Maguire happen.
This all started as one fan came to the comic book movie scribe, joking that they would offer money to Tomlin to write a fourth Maguire-led Spider-Man movie, to which he just said, "Trying:"
TobeyKirstenWeb: "Here's your money to write the script."
Mattson Tomlin: "Trying!"
He offered the same reply to another account focused specifically on Sam Raimi-related projects, saying that "Call me Mattson, and by call me I mean call the real Sam Raimi."
Tomlin previously pitched what he would want a Rami/Maguire Spider-Man 4 to look like, positing that it would focus on "Tobey’s Spider-Man... juggling being a husband and a father:"
"Honestly right now my main interest in this respect would be to write a 'Spider-Man 4' where Tobey’s Spider-Man is juggling being a husband and a father. Spider-Man as a father is where I gravitate towards given the last 8 films."
It is worth noting that no official announcement has been made about Marvel or Raimi pursuing a potential fourth Spider-Man film set in the Maguire universe, but fan interest remains high.
In 2022, Raimi commented on the possibility of returning for another Spider-Man film. At the time, he said, "My love for the characters hasn’t diminished one iota," but "there's a lot of questions that would have to be answered."
Will Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 4 Ever Happen?
For comic book movie fans of a particular vintage, Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 4 has become something of a golden goose. What once felt like an impossibility has slowly become more and more likely as time has gone on.
However, there is no guarantee that it ever will happen. Sure, legacy sequels have become a hot commodity in Hollywood, making something like Spider-Man 4 finally feel viable, but several things would need to happen for it to become a reality.
Sam Raimi seems game if things were to fall into place. It would just come down to whether Tobey Maguire wants to make it happen, and if Sony Pictures has any interest.
Maguire did jump back into the suit for the first time in nearly 20 years in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home (and is rumored to do the same in the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars), but coming back to lead a full-fledged solo Spidey story is a different story.
If a legacy Spider-Man sequel were to get greenlit, it almost seems more likely that it would be centered on another classic big-screen wall crawler, namely Andrew Garfield.
Garfield is younger and is widely considered to have never gotten his due as the web-head, simply because both his Spider-Man movies received lukewarm reactions from audiences.
If someone like Mattson Tomlin wanted to tackle a more mature Spider-Man story, that could still be accomplished with Garfield's version of the character, as the actor is now in his early 40s.
For now, though, the only officially announced Spider-Man films are Spider-Man: Brand New Day (starring Tom Holland and scheduled for release on July 31, 2026) and the animated Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.
