In it's exclusive cover story, "The Secrets of Spider-Man 2," Newsweek reports the tangled backstory of the making of what is sure to be the summer's hottest movie. For a brief time in 2003, the future of that franchise -- the entire weight of the "Spider-Man" juggernaut -- balanced on the fragile spine of one 28-year-old actor. Maguire had suffered from recurrent back problems for years. As the "Spider-Man" sequel was gearing up, he was just coming off "Seabiscuit," a movie for which he'd had to lose a lot of weight and do a lot of horse riding, neither of which helped his condition. "My back was the worst it had ever been," he says. "I looked at the stunts I was going to have to do for 'Spider-Man 2,' which were going to be three times as difficult as the stunts on the first movie, and it became a little overwhelming." And that became an overwhelming problem, reports Senior Writer Sean Smith. Soon, Maguire found himself fighting to hold on to his Spider-Man tights.
At the time, Maguire was finishing "Seabiscuit," working 14-hour days, six days a week. He was also in the middle of contract negotiations with the studio. His agent asked for $25 million, or 10 percent of the gross-whichever was bigger. The studio said no. In the middle of those negotiations, Raimi, who was prepping the special effects for "Spider-Man 2," asked Maguire to come in on his day off to do about 10 hours of scans, in which computers would map every point on the actor's body to help create a digital double. Maguire declined. "I was on the verge of being sick, my back was killing me, and I was like, 'If I go do this, 'Seabiscuit' is going to suffer'," he says. "It was a tricky situation. I didn't want to hurt the movie. I didn't want to offend Sam. I was just trying to balance everything in my life. So I postponed it for three weeks, and they got pissed off. I didn't realize that at the time." He didn't realize it because he wasn't talking to Raimi or anyone at Columbia directly, but through his representatives, Smith reports. Meanwhile, Raimi and top Columbia execs were doing the same.
Eventually the studio agreed to give Maguire a raise, bringing his total salary package to about $17 million. But that didn't solve the problems. When Maguire began preparing for "Spider-Man 2," he realized his stunt work was going to be much more intense, something Raimi had warned Maguire's reps about. Maguire's doctors were concerned, and his reps began insisting on limiting the amount and difficulty of his stunts. Eventually, Raimi says, "it got to me that if Tobey's back was hurt seriously it could cause paralysis. I didn't want to ask an actor to do something that would cause permanent injury. Yet, as a director, I didn't want to compromise my movie. I realized, I'm going to have to lose Tobey." Hence the phone call telling Maguire he was out.
Around the industry, speculation was rampant that the actor had exaggerated his back problems in an effort to hold the studio hostage for even more money. Columbia chairman Amy Pascal won't say whether she agrees with that analysis. "I love Tobey, and I did not want to replace him," she says. "Did he have a bad back? Yes. Was it exacerbated by the situation on 'Seabiscuit'? I think it was. Was it exacerbated by the fact that we didn't want to pay him more money? You can ask him that." Maguire insists it wasn't. "All that stuff about money was total bull----," he says. "I was never worried about my compensation." He pauses. "But you know, on the first movie I was like an excited little monkey. I'm a passionate actor-maybe obnoxiously so sometimes. On this movie I wasn't talking to them. I think [Raimi and the studio] probably felt like, 'What happened to Tobey?' But when I figured out what was happening, I dealt with it." By then, of course, someone had leaked the news that actor Jake Gyllenhaal might replace Maguire to the media, and the story blew up around them. Fences were finally mended in March 2003, at a meeting between Pascal, Raimi and Maguire at Pascal's home, and Maguire was rehired.
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