Throughout the decades of comics, TV shows, and films, no hero has been as consistently popular as the web-slinging Spider-Man. The 21st century has been particularly kind to Peter Parker, with eight solo movies centered around the character starring Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland - that all culminated with the biggest movie event of 2021 in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
At the start of this new wave of wall-crawler films was 2002's Spider-Man, which featured Sam Raimi as the director and Tobey Maguire as Sony's leading man. This solo film helped kickstart the modern era of superhero films with its use of costuming, special effects, and realism, even becoming the first movie in history to earn over $100 million in its opening weekend.
Now, Spider-Man is celebrating 20 years since its original debut in theaters on May 3, 2002, when it became the highest-grossing movie of the year in the United States and the third highest-grossing outing worldwide. To help ring in this momentous anniversary, Sony delivered a short video reliving some of the best moments from that original film.
Happy 20th Anniversary, Spider-Man!
Sony released a 56-second video celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the release of Tobey Maguire's first Spider-Man movie, which arrived in theaters on May 3, 2002.
Starting off with clips of Maguire's hero alongside Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the trailer shows off some of the biggest moments from Maguire's first go as Peter Parker. From Spidey swinging with Kirsten Dunst's Mary-Jane Watson to fighting Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, this short clip highlights everything that director Sam Raimi brought to the big screen in his first superhero outing.
The clip included the following message throughout the footage from Maguire's movie:
"One hero changed movies forever.
Where were you when Spider-Man first swung into theaters?
Remember, relive, rediscover the hero who started it all."
The full trailer can be seen below:
Two Decades of Spider-Man Solo Stories
On top of what it did for the superhero genre financially and critically, Spider-Man delivered a thrilling modern take on the high-school web-slinger as he went through his classic origin story. Raimi's vision came through as he worked with Maguire, Dunst, and Dafoe to change the genre forever, helping open the door for the modern movies of this era to come to fruition.
This movie was also the first in a full Spider-Man trilogy, which brought in other villains like Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus and Thomas Hayden Church's Sandman. On top of that, this first movie shows how successful new superhero movies could be while putting Spider-Man into the spotlight, giving Maguire and Raimi one the most financially successful movies of their careers.
Now, Maguire and Raimi both get to celebrate this incredible moment as they return to the superhero genre as Maguire starred in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Raimi got the chance to direct Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. There are even fan cries for them to reunite and make a fourth Spider-Man movie together, but even if that doesn't happen, their legacies are set amongst Marvel's best.
