There is no doubt that for the vast majority of Marvel fans, the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home was the highlight of the MCU’s Phase 4. Since the movie’s release, there has been plenty of speculation over whether the pair will be reprising their roles again in any of the MCU’s multiverse movies, such as Avengers: Secret Wars and Maguire has recently given the strongest hint so far that he would be more than happy to return to his role as Peter Parker again if he was called on.
Tobey Maguire was the first actor to play Spider-Man in a big screen outing back in 2002 as part of Sam Raimi’s trilogy of Marvel movies. For that reason alone, Maguire became the template for Spider-Man movies of the future, and fans have longed to see him again in the role since his last appearance in Spider-Man 3 in 2007. That wish was finally granted when Maguire and his former co-stars Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina brought the past into the present Marvel Cinematic Universe as part of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s multiverse story. In an excerpt from the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home: The Official Movie Special book, Maguire said of another possible return to the franchise:
“I love these films and I love all of the different series. If these guys called me and said, “Would you show up tonight to hang out and goof around?” or “Would you show up to do this movie or read a scene or do a Spider-Man thing?”, it would be a “yes!” Because why wouldn’t I want to do that?”
Avengers: Secret Wars Could Bring Back Maguire, Garfield, and Many More Former Marvel Stars
With the Infinity Saga, there was a pretty linear route for the story to take, other than in Avengers: Endgame, when time travel made things a little more complicated. However, heading into the heart of the Multiverse Saga has proven to be a very different playground, with doorways to many previously untouchable characters from other Marvel franchises standing open and ready to usher through anyone the writers choose to use.
The result of this has already seen both Maguire and Garfield returning as Spider-Man, Patrick Stewart reprising his X-Men role as Professor X, and Hugh Jackman preparing to bring Wolverine back one more time in Deadpool 3. As we head deeper into the multiverse in the coming years, fan expectations of more returning characters will only increase by the time Avengers: Secret Wars arrives.
There could be some cameos coming much sooner than that, though, with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania arriving next month having had some “big cameos” teased by Paul Rudd. As the first movie to bring the might of Kang the Conqueror to the MCU, Marvel Studios hopes to get 2023 off to a billion-dollar start as Phase 5 finally gets underway.