Real reason
Tobey Maguire quits Spider-Man 4... after new script sends Peter Parker back to high school
By Daily Mail Reporter
UPDATED: 00:31 GMT, 14 January 2010
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Tobey Maguire has sensationally quit the film role that made him famous, after the film company wanted to send the super-hero back to school.
Maguire, 34, who became famous for his breakthrough role in comic book film Spider-Man decided to hang up his webbed suit, weeks before filming on a fourth instalment of the super-hero franchise was due to start.
Sony Pictures and Marvel plan to take the billion dollar franchise in a new direction which will see the new movie focus on Peter Parker in high school, dealing with human issues as well as super-human predicaments.
And clearly Maguire who is married with two children, Ruby, three, and Otis, eight months, to jewellery designer Jennifer Meyer, may have thought playing a high school student at his age was no longer plausible.
Scroll down to watch a MailOnline video report
SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007) TOBEY MAGUIRE & KIRSTEN DUNST,
It's over: Tobey Maguire has bowed out of the fourth instalment in the Spider-Man franchise after the script called for Peter Parker to return to high school
The news comes in the wake of what appears to be a creative dispute on a grand scale.
Neither the actor, 34, nor Sam Raimi, the director behind all three of the Spider-Man films will now be involved in the fourth instalment, along with actress Kirsten Dunst, who played Mary Jane Watson, love interest of the crime fighter’s alter ego, Peter Parker.
Director Raimi was apparently unwilling to accept both the script, and financial conditions imposed by Sony executives.
The script had been subject to a number of rewrites in the past year to come up with a screenplay he found acceptable, with a fourth effort in the works.
Tobey Maguire Kirsten Dunst Spider-Man
Tobey Maguire stars as Spider Man in the title role along with co-star Kirsten Dunst in the 2002 film Spider-Man
And Raimi was reportedly arguing for a $300 million [£188m] budget to realise the film's sets and battle scenes. But Sony would only let him have $230m.
A plan to hire Anne Hathaway to play one of the female leads fell through during financial negotiations.
But on the weekend Raimi, Maguire and Dunst all decided to quit the film.
Raimi said in a statement released by Sony: 'While we were looking forward to doing a fourth one together, the studio and Marvel have a unique opportunity to take the franchise in a new direction, and I know they will do a terrific job.'
While Maguire said: 'I am so proud of what we accomplished with the Spider-Man franchise over the last decade.
'Beyond the films themselves I have formed some deep and lasting friendships. I am excited to see the next chapter unfold in this incredible story.'
James Franco, Kirsten Dunst, director Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire and Thomas Haden Church
Out: From left: James Franco, Kirsten Dunst, director Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire and Thomas Haden Church at the premiere of Spider-Man 3, in Tokyo, Japan
Raimi said his work on the previous Spider-Man films was the experience of a lifetime, but acknowledged the studio was heading in a 'new direction'.
Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios said they will delay a fourth film by one year and return in 2012 with a new story, new director and new cast.
The "new chapter" will tell of a high-school-age Peter Parker, the alter ego for comic book crime fighter Spider-Man who had been played by Tobey Maguire,
The previous trio of movies, starting with 2002's Spider-Man have raked in roughly $2.5 billion at the box office and yielded tens of millions more in profits from product licensing, toy sales and other merchandise revenues.
In the first movies, Parker had already graduated from high school, so the fourth film will essentially be a reworking of the franchise. Maguire is now 34 years old and a father
