Since becoming the first definite on-screen Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire established a standard that actors have to live up to while playing the nerdy Peter Parker. Later on, we saw Silence‘s Andrew Garfield and newcomer Tom Holland don the red and blue spandex to swing across New York.
The character of Spider-Man remains so popular that there’s a separate universe of Spider-Man characters called Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, which has seen some success in the Venom films despite not even starring the web-crawler in any of the films.
The Pre-MCU Spider-Men
Before Spider-Man became a canonized member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we saw the character be portrayed by Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield in their own self-contained universes, with the Sam Raimi-directed franchise gaining better reviews from fans and critics overall.
Both films concentrated on giving Peter Parker an origin story, with different retellings of the famous “great responsibility” adage. Though the characters had different manners of shooting webs, as Toby Maguire’s Peter had organic webs while Andrew Garfield’s character made his webs artificially.
The characters also differed in personality, as Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker was far more confident and quippy. Tobey Maguire’s interpretation on the other hand was far more nerdy and vulnerable, with his quips being comparatively fewer but still remaining entertaining as the web-crawler.
The era of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man
Introduced in the MCU through Captain America: Civil War, Tom Holland‘s performance found a balance between the two interpretations of the character by previous actors. It was also the first time Spider-Man interacted with so many MCU characters, letting us see a new side of the character.
Despite his introduction being enjoyed by fans and his first standalone film adding a lot more to the lore, we still don’t know this Peter Parker’s origin story. The director of all the MCU Spider-Man films Jon Watts commented on the lack of information on the subject, he said:
“It was just so nice to skip past it and just deal with more with the repercussions… and just explore it from the perspective of someone else finding out about it and having a lot of questions.”
This rings true since every Spider-Man film has been compared to Sam Raimi’s successful outing, with the dialogues, the fight scenes, and the origin stories being common comparisons. On the other hand, Jon Watts completely sidestepped the origin story, expanding on other unexplored stories.
Furthermore, we came to know more about Peter Parker and his alter ego through his friends and mentors. First through Tony Stark who analyzed the tech and the suit and then by Peter’s friend Ned Leeds who became a vessel for understanding Spider-Man’s daily life.
Source: The Direct
