Spider-Man: Every Tobey Maguire Marvel movie ranked worst to best
4. Spider-Man 3
It’s really common to hear film studios interfere a lot in superhero movies nowadays. Sometimes the director’s original vision for a project is not met because studio executives demand for things be changed. And while there are many instances where this occurred, perhaps one of the first was Sony’s Spider-Man 3. Sam Raimi wanted Sandman to be the main antagonist of the film but Sony forced him to include Venom as well. The studio knew that the symbiotic supervillain was extremely popular, and they thought that popularity could translate to more ticket sales. However, they didn’t stop to consider just how much this decision would hurt the overall movie.
You can tell Raimi didn’t want to use Venom at all. While the other antagonists that appeared in his Spider-Man projects were all memorable and carefully crafted, the Lethal Protector didn’t get the same treatment. And if it wasn’t enough, the movie also had to worry about Sandman and Harry Osborn’s Green Goblin. Having three different antagonists meant neither one of them got enough screen time or development to really resonate with audiences. What’s even worse is that, in an attempt to connect everything together, a huge retconning was made to the Spider-Man mythos.
Flint Marko’s Sandman was ultimately revealed to be Uncle Ben’s real killer instead of a random thug. This was made so that Peter could have a reason to hate Sandman and use the black suit to try and kill him. Sadly, that ended up translating into a cheap and convoluted story that didn’t have much of an impact.
A lot of tension was also added to Peter’s and Mary Jane’s relationship. The downside is that instead of seeing them evolve as a couple and maybe even get married, we just saw them argue most of the time. At that point, it became tiring as it was the very same thing we watched them do in previous entries of the trilogy. No progress whatsoever was made in their relationship, which is a shame considering Spider-Man 3 was the final entry in Tobey Maguire’s Marvel movies of his own.
Overall Spider-Man 3 wasn’t terrible, but it definitely was mediocre. Great visual effects and a kick-ass soundtrack weren’t enough to save it. Sam Raimi wanted to redeem himself with Spider-Man 4 but that project was ultimately canceled in favor of a reboot. Unfortunately, this means the very first Spider-Man trilogy ever made will always be remembered for ending on a flat note.