No matter how much Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland have tried/try, for the some of us, Tobey Maguire is the original Spider-Man, and he completely deserves that spot. After all, it was Maguire, via the original Sony trilogy, who brought forth the neighborhood superhero to theaters for the older fans, the first-ever depiction of Spider-Man that we saw on the big screen.
A scene from Spider-Man 3. | Sony
That was not it, as he also brought forth a perfect trilogy, filled to the brim with iconic characters and entertaining storylines. Another character who featured in the original trilogy and has since become iconic due to, well, Tom Hardy, the symbiote Venom was also a part of Spider-Man 3.
Fans will remember how the normally-innocent and shy Peter Parker was transformed into a menace when he first integrated with Venom. It brought forth a scene that has become the biggest meme to have come from this trilogy, and was also only reluctantly done by Maguire himself.
Tobey Maguire was ‘negative’ about his hilarious disc–dance scene in Spider-Man 3
Tobey Maguire as Evil Spider-Man. | Sony
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is a gift that gave us content for the ages. One of the most notable, meme-worthy scenes that came out of the series was this dance that Peter Parker breaks into after going on a hilarious rampage and shopping spree across the city of New York.
Parker had also upgraded to the black Venom suit and eventually came back to his senses. As it turns out, according to Pomerhn Derricks, the dance choreographer who came up with this iconic scene and steps, Maguire was utterly negative about dancing: (via Den of Geek)
When I got Spider-Man 3 with Tobey Maguire, I remember meeting with him and Sam Raimi, and Tobey did not want to dance. There was this whole breakdancing scene that turned him off. I was developing this number and bringing in all these head-spinners to be his body doubles, and Tobey was negative, negative, negative.
Tobey Maguire had his fears, which in retrospect were justified, considering the way the particular scene completely flipped the script on the Peter Parker he had portrayed until that point. However, the opposite of it happened, as Derricks herself had claimed it would.
Tobey Maguire had nothing to worry about, with respect to the hilarious dance scene in Spider-Man 3
Although uncharacteristic, the scene made sense considering Venom’s sensibilities that fans are much more familiar with now. Derricks had to come up with the example of Heath Ledger’s 10 Things I Hate About You to drive home her point. She told Tobey that just like Ledger had made classic dance moves iconic with his scenes in the movie, so could Maguire:
So one day I went to his house, and I started showing him Fred Astaire stuff, and that’s what we ended up doing for Spider-Man 3. But it was because of Heath [Ledger that] I told Tobey, ‘You doing it is not going to age you. You’re just going to make these classic moves fresh and hip and new.’ Watching Heath do that in the stands, that’s exactly what he did. In his youth and his fearlessness, he made them look so cool.
The sequence not only included the dance moves, but a hilarious walk, Peter’s attempts to make Mary Jane jealous, and him bringing forth a shakedown to his workplace, where J. Jonah Jameson was his boss.
Hence, not only did Derrick get proven right once the sequence became so utterly famous, it also made sense in retrospect, considering Spider-Man was now walking around fused to the Venom symbiote, which is bound to have a range of effects on one’s demeanor.
Spider-Man 3 is available to be watched on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
