Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man franchise was the advent of superhero movies of the current generation. It has been exactly 17 years since the third movie in the trilogy was released, which was the conclusion of a story beloved by many. While the second installment in the trilogy is considered the best, the third one, unfortunately, did not receive similar treatment either from critics or the audience. Screenwriter Alvin Sargent was the man behind the script for the third movie, and he had a pretty good idea on how to move forward.
Spider-Man 3 ended up being a mixture of too many plots and too many characters. From Harry Osborne to Sandman to Venom, the movie had too many villains and too little time to deal with them properly. This is why Sargent thought of splitting the story into two parts – Spider-Man 3 & 4 – and tell a story that would otherwise have been too complex for the viewers. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
Screenwriter Alvin Sargent Wanted to Split Spider-Man 3 Into Two Parts
With so many characters being part of Tobey Maguire‘s third movie, screenwriter Alvin Sargent thought of making it in two parts. Dividing them into two would have helped the story be less complex and given time and proper consideration to each and every character as well as plot lines. Unfortunately, Sargent could not find a middle point where he could break the story.
This ultimately led to the movie being a compact version of the script. Thus, we got Spider-Man 3 with too many characters and subplots that did not get enough time to fully mature for the audiences to enjoy. And this would have not only helped flesh out the story but also made way more money for the studio. Given the success of the original Spider-Man trilogy, having four movies instead of three would have only meant positive things for Sony.
Why Spider-Man 3 Failed to Win Over Critics and Fans
While the biggest reason for a failed Spider-Man 3 goes to the addition of too many characters to the story, there were also many others that only added to it. For one, Sam Raimi did not have creative control as he did in the first two movies of the trilogy. One other thing was that the story had too many subplots, which was difficult to balance on screen. As actor Thomas Hayden Church told of Raimi to Joblo:
“Hey we tried to shove ten pounds of story into a five-pound bag.”
Another thing the audience did not like was that the story did a disservice to the character of Gwen Stacy. Bryce Dallas Howard, who played the character, was there only for show and to make Kristen Dunst’s MJ jealous. They completely looked over the complexity of the relationship between Peter and Gwen, as well as the complexity of her character in itself.
All in all, the story failed to make an impact, which led to the trilogy coming to an end, even though plans for a 4th movie were always there. Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man trilogy is available on Disney+.
