Original big-screen Spider-Man Tobey Maguire and TASM star Andrew Garfield reprised their respective roles alongside Tom Holland's MCU Webhead for 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the movie went on to become one of the biggest superhero successes in recent memory.
So, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that Sony Pictures is (reportedly) eager to replicate some of that box office glory by bringing Maguire and Garfield back for the next solo Spider-Man adventure.
According to Daniel Richtman, the studio does indeed want both actors back to rejoin Holland for the currently in-development (though still not officially announced) "Spider-Man 4." He also mentions that Wilson Fisk/Kingpin is set to appear, but Vincent D'Onofrio has not yet entered talks.
Just a rumor for now, but again, would anyone really be shocked if this proved to be accurate?
Of course, even if Sony does want Tobey and Andrew back, it doesn't necessarily mean it'll happen. Richtman also hints at a possible conflict of interest, with Kevin Feige eager for the movie "to be more grounded, while Sony wants it to be huge."
At any rate, both Garfield and Maguire have previously expressed interest in returning, so even if they don't show up in Spider-Man 4, we'd say there's a very good chance of them swinging by for Avengers: Secret Wars (if not before).
Tom Holland and Zendaya will almost certainly return as Peter Parker and MJ, but the former is believed to be "growing wary" of playing the iconic hero, so this could be his final time in the red and blue suit.
During a recent interview, the actor said he feels that he's become too used to the "safety blanket of Spider-Man."
"I want to do things that scare me, things that make me uncomfortable. When you do what we do, you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. This show is a perfect example of that. Ben is consistently telling me, if you don’t commit, they won’t believe you. The reason I wasn’t committing is because I was afraid. I’ve never done anything like this before. I got so used to the Marvel machine and the safety blanket of Spider-Man, feeling like I was protected. So, doing something like this was incredibly scary, but because it was so scary, it was so fulfilling and so rewarding. Going forward, if there’s something that I feel like I can’t do, I want to do that one. Playing a sort of stupid English doofus is not what I want to do because that’s my life, right?"
The script is being written by No Way Home scribes Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, but we still know very little about the story, including which of the Wall-Crawler's fearsome foes will be causing problems for Peter and co.
Most of Spidey's major bad guys have already been utilized in previous films (Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, etc), but a recent rumor claimed that the still untitled sequel will feature a villain we haven't seen in live-action yet.