Behind the Ultimate Spin: The Making of 'Spider-Man'

Tobias Vincent Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for starring as Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007), a role he later reprised in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Maguire started his career in supporting roles in the films This Boy's Life (1993), The Ice Storm, Deconstructing Harry (both 1997), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). His leading roles include Pleasantville (1998), Ride with the Devil (1999), The Cider House Rules (1999), Wonder Boys (2000), Seabiscuit (2003), The Good German (2006), Brothers (2009), The Great Gatsby (2013), and Pawn Sacrifice (2014). Maguire received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Brothers (2009). He established his own production company in 2012 called Material Pictures and co-produced Good People (2012), Pawn Sacrifice (2014), and Babylon (2022). Description above from the Wikipedia article Tobey Maguire, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Kirsten Caroline Dunst (born April 30, 1982) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and four Golden Globe Awards. She made her acting debut in the short Oedipus Wrecks directed by Woody Allen in the anthology film New York Stories (1989). She then gained recognition for her role as child vampiress Claudia in the horror film Interview with the Vampire (1994), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also had roles in her youth in Little Women (1994) and the fantasy films Jumanji (1995) and Small Soldiers (1998). In the late 1990s, Dunst transitioned to leading roles in a number of teen films, including the political satire Dick (1999) and the Sofia Coppola-directed drama The Virgin Suicides (1999). In 2000, she starred in the lead role in the cheerleading film Bring It On, which has become a cult classic. She gained further wide attention for her role as Mary Jane Watson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002) and its sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). Her career progressed with a supporting role in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), followed by a lead role in Cameron Crowe's tragicomedy Elizabethtown (2005), and as the title character in Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006). In 2011, Dunst starred as a depressed newlywed in Lars von Trier's science fiction drama Melancholia, which earned her the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. In 2015, she played Peggy Blumquist in the second season of the FX series Fargo, which earned Dunst a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. She then had a supporting role in the film Hidden Figures (2016) and leading roles in The Beguiled (2017), and the black comedy series On Becoming a God in Central Florida (2019), for which she received a third Golden Globe nomination. She earned nominations for her fourth Golden Globe and first Academy Award nomination for her performance in the psychological drama The Power of the Dog (2021).

William James "Willem" Dafoe (/dəˈfoʊ/də-FOH or /ˈdeɪfoʊ/ DAY-foh; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. Known for his prolific career portraying diverse roles in both mainstream and arthouse films, he is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor as well as nominations for four Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, four Golden Globe Awards, four Critics' Choice Movie Awards, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has frequently collaborated with filmmakers Paul Schrader, Abel Ferrara, Lars von Trier, Julian Schnabel, Wes Anderson, and Robert Eggers. Dafoe was a founding member of experimental theatre company The Wooster Group. He made his film debut with an uncredited role in Heaven's Gate (1980). Dafoe's early career includes credits for The Loveless (1982), Streets of Fire (1984), and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). He earned his first Academy Award nomination for the war drama Platoon (1986), followed by nominations for his roles in Shadow of the Vampire (2000), The Florida Project (2017), and the Vincent van Gogh biopic At Eternity's Gate (2018). He also gained acclaim and wide recognition for his roles as Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) and as the supervillain Norman Osborn in the superhero film Spider-Man (2002), a role he reprised in its sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). His other film appearance include roles in Mississippi Burning (1988), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Wild at Heart (1990), Light Sleeper (1992), Body of Evidence (1993), Clear and Present Danger (1994), The English Patient (1996), Affliction (1997), New Rose Hotel(1998), Existenz (1999), The Boondock Saints (1999), American Psycho (2000), Auto Focus (2002), Finding Nemo (2003), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Inside Man (2006), Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007), Antichrist (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Nymphomaniac (2013), The Fault in Our Stars (2014), John Wick (2014), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Aquaman (2018), The Lighthouse (2019), Nightmare Alley (2021), Poor Things (2023), and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024). Description above from the Wikipedia article Willem Dafoe, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber /ˈliːbər/; December 28, 1922–November 12, 2018) was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Comics, which later became Marvel Comics. He was Marvel's primary creative leader for two decades, expanding it from a small publishing house division to a multimedia corporation that dominated the comics and film industries. In collaboration with others at Marvel—particularly co-writers and artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko—he co-created iconic characters, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, the Wasp, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, the Scarlet Witch, and Black Widow. These and other characters' introductions in the 1960s pioneered a more naturalistic approach in superhero comics. In the 1970s, Lee challenged the restrictions of the Comics Code Authority, indirectly leading to changes in its policies. In the 1980s, he pursued the development of Marvel properties in other media, with mixed results. Following his retirement from Marvel in the 1990s, Lee remained a public figurehead for the company. He frequently made cameo appearances in films and television shows based on Marvel properties, on which he received an executive producer credit, which allowed him to become the person with the highest-grossing film total ever. He continued independent creative ventures until his death, aged 95, in 2018. Lee was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. He received the NEA's National Medal of Arts in 2008. Description above from the Wikipedia article Stan Lee, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Laura Ellen Ziskin (March 3, 1950–June 12, 2011) was an American film producer. She was the executive producer of Pretty Woman (1990) and producer of Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012; posthumous credit). She was the first woman to produce the Academy Awards telecast alone, producing the 74th Academy Awards (2002) and the 79th Academy Awards (2007). Description above from the Wikipedia article Laura Ziskin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Samuel M. Raimi (/ˈreɪmi/ RAY-mee; born October 23, 1959) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for directing the first three films in the Evil Dead franchise (1981–present) and the Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007). He also directed the superhero movie Darkman (1990), the revisionist western The Quick and the Dead (1995), the neo-noir crime thriller A Simple Plan (1998), the supernatural thriller The Gift (2000), the supernatural horror Drag Me to Hell (2009), the Disney fantasy Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), and the Marvel Studios film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). His films are known for their highly dynamic visual style, inspired by comic books and slapstick comedy. He founded the production company Renaissance Pictures in 1979 and Ghost House Pictures in 2002. Raimi has also produced several successful television series, including Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, its spin-off Xena: Warrior Princess, and Ash vs. Evil Dead, starring long-time friend and collaborator Bruce Campbell reprising his role in the Evil Dead franchise. Description above from the Wikipedia article Sam Raimi, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Ian Bryce (born November 30, 1956) is an English film producer. Starting as a production assistant on Return of the Jedi in 1983, he has since served as a producer for films including Twister, Saving Private Ryan, The Island, Spider-Man, Transformers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. According to The Numbers, his films have grossed $7 billion worldwide—making him the 14th highest-grossing film producer as of 2024. Bryce grew up in Bristol, England, but moved to the US as a young adult. Bryce has won and been nominated for many awards, including multiple Golden Globe Awards, Academy Awards, and BAFTA nominations for his work as a producer. For Steven Spielberg's World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, he won a Golden Globe Award and nominations from the Academy Awards and BAFTA. The latter film was the second-highest-grossing film of 1998. Almost Famous, another Bryce production, received a BAFTA for Best Film in 2000. Bryce co-produced each of the films in the Michael Bay Transformers series, one of the highest-grossing film franchises of the 21st century. After marrying his wife Taylor, they moved to Los Angeles. They have two kids, Mac Bryce and Alex Bryce. Description above from the Wikipedia article Ian Bryce, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Avi Arad (/ˈɑːvi ˈɑːrɑːd/; Hebrew: אבי ארד; born August 1, 1948) is an Israeli-American studio executive and producer of film, television, and animation. He became the CEO of Toy Biz in the 1990s, was the chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment, and is the founder, former chairman, and former CEO of the latter's successor, Marvel Studios. Since then, he has produced and sometimes written a wide array of live-action, animated, and television comic book adaptations, including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Arad was born in 1948 in Ramat Gan, Israel, to a Jewish family. The son of Holocaust survivors from Poland, he grew up reading Superman and Spider-Man comics translated into Hebrew. In 1965, he was conscripted as a soldier into the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). He fought and was wounded in the 1967 Six-Day War and spent 15 days recuperating. Arad finished his military service in 1968. In 1970, Arad moved to the United States and enrolled at Hofstra University to study industrial management. He worked as a truck driver and as a Hebrew teacher to put himself through college and graduated with a BBA in 1972. Along with Israeli-American Toy Biz co-owner Isaac Perlmutter, Avi Arad came into conflict with Carl Icahn and Ron Perelman over control of Marvel Comics in the wake of its 1996 bankruptcy. In the end, Arad and Perlmutter came out on top, with Toy Biz taking over Marvel Comics in a complicated deal that included obtaining the rights to Spider-Man and other superheroes that Marvel had sold earlier. He was involved in Marvel's emergence from bankruptcy and the expansion of the company's profile through licensing and movies. On May 31, 2006, Arad resigned from his various Marvel positions, including his leadership of Marvel Studios, to form his own production company, Arad Productions (also known as Arad Animation), a company that primarily produces Marvel-licensed films separate from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His first non-Marvel film was 2007's Bratz. Further ventures include the manga adaptation Ghost in the Shell; an adaptation of Brandon Mull's teenage fantasy Fablehaven (which died in production); an adaptation of James Patterson's teenage novel Maximum Ride; and adaptations of video game properties Uncharted, Infamous, Metal Gear Solid, and The Legend of Zelda. In August 2010, it was announced that Arad was given a chair with the American branch of animation studio Production I.G in Los Angeles, California. Description above from the Wikipedia article Avi Arad, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in 127 Hours (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007), Milk (2008), Eat, Pray, Love (2010), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Spring Breakers (2012), and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). He is known for his collaborations with fellow actor Seth Rogen, having appeared in eight films and one television series with him, examples being Pineapple Express (2008), This Is the End (2013), Sausage Party (2016), and The Disaster Artist (2017), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. Franco is also known for his work on television where his first prominent acting role was the character Daniel Desario on the short-lived ensemble comedy-drama Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000), which developed a cult following. He portrayed the title character in the television biographical film James Dean (2001), for which he won a Golden Globe Award, and received nominations for Screen Actors Guild Award and Primetime Emmy Award. Franco had a recurring role on the daytime soap opera General Hospital (2009–2012) and starred in the limited series 11.22.63 (2016). He starred in the David Simon-created HBO drama The Deuce (2017–2019).

Rosemary Ann Harris (born 19 September 1927) is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominatied for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards. Description above from the Wikipedia article Rosemary Harris, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Clifford Parker Robertson III (September 9, 1923 – September 10, 2011) was an American actor whose career in film and television spanned half a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the film Charly. On television, he portrayed retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin in the 1976 adaptation of Aldrin's autobiographic Return to Earth, played a fictional character based on Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms in the 1977 miniseries Washington: Behind Closed Doors, and portrayed Henry Ford in Ford: The Man and the Machine (1987). His last well-known film appearances were as Uncle Ben in the 2002–2007 Spider-Man film trilogy. Description above from the Wikipedia article Cliff Robertson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Don Michael Burgess, ASC (born May 28, 1956) is an American cinematographer, best known for his collaborations with director Robert Zemeckis. He was nominated for the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for Zemeckis' Forrest Gump (1994). In 2024, he received the American Society of Cinematographers' Lifetime Achievement Award. Burgess comes from a family of builders and initially wanted to be an architect in his youth. His introduction to photography came through his father building a darkroom for his sister since she was in a high school photography class at the time. When in high school, he made ski movies and motorcycle movies. He attended the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena and cited nature documentarian Mike Hoover as an influence. While attending ArtCenter, he worked as a film loader on William Friedkin's Sorcerer (1977). Burgess spent the first decade of his career shooting various independent and low-budget films, as well as nature documentaries for the National Geographic Channel. In 1987, he shot the full-motion video game Night Trap, which was eventually released in 1992. He was also a second unit cinematographer on Runaway Train (1985), Cherry 2000 (1986), and Back to the Future Part II (1989) & Part III (1990), which brought him into contact with Robert Zemeckis. In 1994, Zemeckis was the main cinematographer on Zemeckis' Forrest Gump, earning Oscar and BAFTA Award nominations for his work. He has subsequently worked with Zemeckis on 10 films, including Contact (1997), Cast Away (2000), and The Polar Express (2004). His work with other directors includes Spider-Man (2002), Enchanted (2007), The Book of Eli (2010), Source Code (2011), The Muppets (2011), 42 (2013), The Conjuring 2 (2016), Aquaman (2018), and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023). On March 3, 2024, Burgess received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers. Description above from the Wikipedia article Don Burgess (cinematographer), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.