Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 is often comparable to being the superhero genre’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in that both of them acted as a pair of the most hotly-anticipated sequels in history, earned plenty of money at the box office, and drew better reviews than you remember, but went down like a lead balloon among the fan community.
In the case of the former, Raimi was hardly shy in admitting that Venom wouldn’t have featured in the movie at all if he had complete creative autonomy, leading to an overlong slog of a third act that would have really benefited from shaving 20 or so minutes from the unnecessary 139-minute running time.
However, there’s nobody but the director to blame for the scenes of Tobey Maguire cutting loose and throwing shapes on the streets of New York City, which remains one of the most heavily-pilloried moments in the history of the comic book adaptation. In an recent interview with Fandom, though, the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness architect attempted to explain his thinking.
“Well, we meant it to be funny, actually. It was Peter Parker’s version — this lame kid — of what it must be like to be his evil self. But he’s so whipped. He’s so out of it that that’s his take on it. And that didn’t go over well with the audience. But that’s what we were trying to do. So I’m not surprised that people… I’m glad people find it funny! We wanted it to be fun.”
Raimi is still out there fielding questions about Spider-Man 3, 15 years since it was released, so at least it’s managed to remain a relevant talking point despite its many shortcomings.