Stunning Fan Creation Reimagines Tobey Maguire's Cancelled Spider-Man 4

1 month ago 12

Jordan Iacobucci has been an avid reader and movie fan since childhood. Jordan is known among his friends as the Marvel and Star Wars nerd, and even wrote a thirty-page college dissertation about Spider-Man! He has been a staff writer at both Screen Rant and CBR, where he enjoys sharing his love for pop culture with the world.

Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 4 gets new life more than a decade after its cancellation, thanks to one devoted fan. Sam Raimi's iconic Spider-Man franchise was officially put to rest in 2010, but not before the director had completed several storyboards for the planned sequel; now one of the scenes Raimi envisioned has come to life through a stunning fan creation.

The X account @SpiderManVibe recently shared a video that animates one of the storyboards from Sam Raimi's cancelled Spider-Man 4. The eighteen-second clip features Spider-Man locked in high-flying combat with the Vulture, who attempts to drop him to the street far below, only for the hero to catch himself with a web line at the last second.

This fan creation emerged just weeks after rumors suggested that Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi could return for Spider-Man 4, over fifteen years after Sony Pictures originally canceled the film. While these rumors have yet to be confirmed by any official source, animations like these prove that there will still be a large audience for future installments of Raimi's superhero franchise.

Spider-Man 4 originally would have featured the Vulture as its main villain, following in the footsteps of other iconic supervillains from the Raimi Trilogy, including Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin and Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus. Academy Award nominee John Malkovich was signed up to play the role of Adrian Toomes/Vulture before the project was scrapped. It is also believed that Angelina Jolie was being eyed to play Toomes's daughter, who would have taken over as the Vulture after her father's death midway through the movie.

While Spider-Man 4 was scrapped in favor of the 2012 reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi both eventually returned to the Marvel universe years later. Maguire famously reprised his role as Peter Parker in the 2021 MCU film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, where he joined his fellow Spider-Man actors, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland. Just a few months later, Raimi directed the 2022 film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. However, the actor and director have yet to team up again since their last pairing in 2007's Spider-Man 3.

Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 Is Still Possible

Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker holding up his costume from Spider-Man 3

As the world prepares for Tom Holland's next adventure as the web-slinging superhero in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, there remains a slim chance that Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi could still return for another chapter in their beloved franchise. Nearly two decades after Spider-Man 3, the Raimi Trilogy is still widely regarded as one of the most popular superhero franchises of all time. Even after all this time, viewers are still anxious to return to the live-action comic book world that Raimi created.

With Tobey Maguire heavily speculated to return in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, there remains a chance that his Spider-Man's story isn't finished just yet. The overwhelmingly positive reactions to his return in No Way Home certainly instilled confidence in Sony and Marvel that audiences still want to see more of his adventures playing out on the big screen. Whereas the studio may have once feared that having multiple live-action Spider-Man franchises running at the same time would dilute the brand, it seems safe to conclude that this isn't the case.

Over the last several months, new reports suggest that Marvel and Sony may be open to bringing Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire back for Spider-Man 4 sometime after Secret Wars. Other cast members, including Kirsten Dunst, who played Mary Jane Watson, have voiced their desire to return to the franchise as well, making the sequel a distinct possibility. However, the new project would most likely not take the same form as the original Spider-Man 4. A sequel would most likely scrap most of the plans for the original film and tell a new story set decades after the events of Spider-Man 3.

While Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 is still a distant dream for Marvel fans, it isn't impossible. The canceled sequel may indeed find new life in the Marvel multiverse, giving Raimi a chance to write the perfect ending for Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man.

The next film to feature Spider-Man is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is set to hit theaters on July 31, 2026.