Spider-Man has been a major pop culture figure for most of his existence, but things kicked up a few notches in 2002 with the release of the first Spider-Man movie. Tobey Maguire was selected to play Peter Parker in the character’s cinematic debut, and his origin story saw him battling Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn, a.k.a. The Green Goblin. It’s been more than two decades since Spider-Man’s release, and now there’s a fact that’s emerged concerning those two actors which will ruin your day.
Spider-Man filmed from January to June of 2001; Maguire turned 26 on June 26 of that year, around the time principal photography concluded, while Dafoe turned 46 on the following July 22. Cut to present day, the former just turned 48 years old, and the latter is a month away from turning 68. Now obviously the passage of time by itself isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s been pointed out how w that Maguire is now two years older than Dafoe was when they were working on Spider-Man together.
Still, it’s not like this piece of trivia is coming entirely out of nowhere. Two years ago, a tweet made the rounds pointing out that Tobey Maguire was, at the time, the same age that Willem Dafoe was when Spider-Man was shooting, and it included an appropriate Saving Private Ryan gif, as you’ll see below.
Holy shit. Tobey Maguire is now the same age Willem Dafoe was when the first Spider-Man was filmed. pic.twitter.com/VnDWO8kRcSDecember 31, 2021
21 years is a long time on paper, but I imagine for many of us, it doesn’t feel like that more than two decades have passed has passed since Spider-Man swung into theaters and was met with critical and commercial success. The movie spawned two sequels, respectively released in 2004 and 2007, and while Norman Osborn died in that first movie, Dafoe cameoed in the sequels as the Norman hallucination James Franco’s Harry Osborn kept seeing after learning Peter Parker was Spider-Man, whom he believed had murdered his father. There had been plans for Sam Raimi to make Spider-Man 4, but the project was ultimately shelved, and the film series was rebooted in 2012 with The Amazing Spider-Man.
Fortunately, Spider-Man 3 wasn’t Maguire and Dafoe’s last web-slinging outing, as they both returned for 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which starred Tom Holland as the MCU’s Peter Parker. Dafoe’s Norman Osborn was pulled into that universe moments before his death during the events of Spider-Man alongside villains like Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus and Jamie Foxx’s Electro, while both Maguire’s Peter and Andrew Garfield’s version of the character were pulled from their realities in the present day. Dafoe has since said he wasn’t pleased with No Way Home’s de-aging effects, but overall, both men appear to have had a positive experience on the latest live-action Spidey movie.
If you’re interested in revisiting 2002’s Spider-Man, it can be streamed with either a Disney+ subscription or a Hulu subscription. The animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is currently playing in theaters, and fans continue to wait for updates on what’s happening with Tom Holland’s fourth Spider-Man movie.
