Tobey Maguire: Life after 'Spider-Man'

Tobey Maguire: Life after ‘Spider-Man’

Jan. 13, 2010 | 10:05 p.m.

Steve Zeitchik at our new sister blog 24 Frames delves into the future for Tobey Maguire.

There’s been a lot of speculation about who might replace Tobey Maguire as the new Spider-Man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt seems like a no-brainer). But almost as interesting is what happens to the man who’s been playing him.

After all, Sam Raimi will go back to, one can assume (read: hope), the horror/suspense movies of earlier in his career (the rightly lauded “A Simple Plan” and the underrated “The Gift,” to name two). (At least we’re hoping he does; it’s likely he takes on the bigger-budget video-game adaptation “Warcraft” first.) But Maguire poses a trickier question.

He’s been associated with — and in some ways tethered to — the “Spider-Man” franchise for nearly a decade, and the scrapping of the superhero character opens up a new vein of possibility. The actor recently wrapped production on a dark comedy called “The Details.” And of course he can be seen this awards season in the (tepidly reviewed) war movie “Brothers.” With his “Spider-Man” days over, does he continue in a more specialized direction or go back to the blockbuster?

There’s certainly no shortage of big vehicles he can sign on for. A while back, Sony was working on a sci-fi effects-fest called “Worlds,” based on the art-heavy bestselling book by Alec Gillis, that was being developed with Maguire in mind. And there have been rumors of the sci-fi epic “Robotech” and the Guillermo del Toro-directed “The Hobbit.” Both would create Spidey-level fandom — but, also, Spidey-level time commitments … and not offer nearly as much character nuance.

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– Steven Zeitchik

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