Spider-Man is, without a doubt, one of the most iconic superheroes in comic book history. In the world of cinema it has also had its pull, with several actors who have been in charge of giving life to the mythical Spider-Man. Today we are going to review them all. And beware that some may even surprise you.
Spider-Man, a superhero from the 60s
You have to go back to the 60s to find the first appearance of Spider-Man. Spider-Man poked his head out for the first time in issue 15 of Amazing Fantasy , on August 10, 1962. The rest you already know: countless paper publications, television shows, motion pictures (with a fight with Sony‘s included) and even video game adaptations in which this superhero is the absolute protagonist .
Precisely on the big screen we have seen several actors who have been in charge of putting on the red suit, although we also have interpreters in Japan who have been animated in a TV series that not everyone knows and even in a musical that premiered on Broadway in the 90s. There is everything and very varied.
Actors who have made Spider-Man
As we pointed out, the Spider-Man franchise has many formats, including animated images in which voice actors have participated in charge of providing their voice. In this list, however, we are going to focus on the actors who have put Peter Parker to the fore and therefore we have seen at some point whether on the small screen, cinema or theater.
Nicholas Hammond
This 1950-born American actor was the first to portray the Marvel character on screen. He did it with the series The Amazing Spider-Man , being in fact one of the roles for which he is most remembered in his long career.
The TV series had a single 14-episode season and aired from 1977 to 1979 on CBS. Each episode was one hour long. In the 80s, an attempt was made to recover the format through a sequel, a kind of crossover in which Spider-man would appear alongside the Hulk, but the project never came to fruition.
Shinji Tōdō
This Japanese actor is almost on par with Hammond. Tōdō was in charge of giving life to the arachnid superhero in a Japanese television series , of the tokusatsu genre, which started in 79. It had only one season but was made up of no less than 41 episodes, broadcast throughout a year in the middle Tv Tokyo. He even had a special chapter that was shown in theaters during a festival.
The funny thing about this series is that it presents a slightly different story than the one we know: here we do not have Peter Parker but the biker Takuya Yamashiro . A surviving warrior from the planet Spider -as you are reading- injects him with his blood, which causes Yamashiro to acquire arachnid powers. The clothing is similar to what we know, although our Japanese hero also has a (giant) bracelet that serves both to launch cobwebs and control a ship and to “invoke” his uniform. As you can see in the video that you have a few lines above this moment is not wasted.
Reeve Carney
Before we make the leap to the big screen we have to talk about a type of format generally less related to this type of genre: that of musicals. Yes, Spider-man had his own musical, in Brodway itself and Reeve Carney was in charge of bringing the protagonist to life.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark was released as a “preview” in late 2010 and then suffered a host of problems and delays that caused it to not officially open its doors to the public until mid-2011. The proposal did not materialize. entirely the idea, at least among the critics, who described the show as boring (among its “softer” evaluations). Carney played Perter Parker 6 of the 8 times the show was performed per week, being replaced on his breaks by British actor Matthew James Thomas – since he has also dressed as a spider man, albeit in a secondary way, he deserves his mention.
A few lines above you can see a video clip that Carney recorded with Bono, interpreting one of the songs from the musical: “The Edge“.
Toby Maguire
We are already entering the best known era of Spider-Man and his foray into the cinema. The first chosen to give him a face in this new era was Toby Maguire, who was in charge of interpreting him up to three times (the character’s first trilogy on the big screen). They were all quite successful at the box office, and although it was close to participating in a planned Spider-Man 4, this project was finally canceled, closing this cinematic chapter of the saga.
For many he will always be the face of Spider-Man, since he was in theaters in 2002 , 2004 and 2007. And although later we will see that the current favorite is another, he will always be remembered as one of the actors who gave Peter Parker the best character. .
Andrew Garfield
The renewal of the Spider-Man universe came with a new director and new actors with respect to what was seen in Maguire’s movies. This, of course, involved the search for a new actor for the leading role, who would take Andrew Garfiled.
Garfield portrayed Spider-Man twice for the movies ( The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2: The Power of Electro ) and has even voiced in the animated Spider-Man: A New Universe , but he has perhaps it was the face that less liked so far. The reason? Perhaps the long shadow that Toby had left, although the fact that he participated in the less successful saga did not help his work, of course.
Max charles
Well, we could say that this actor is an “extra” within this selection, but it was worth appearing around here. And it is that Max Charles has also given life to Spider-man or rather, Peter Parker , in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2: The Power of Electro where he played the character as a child.
Tom holland
And we come to the last actor who has dared to accept the responsibility of giving back the lost charisma to Spider-Man. Tom Holland is today one of the favorite faces of fans and that is that his work in the new Marvel era has been fantastic, marrying well with the character (by age) and showing great involvement in his work (the actor is usually quite active in social networks and participatory in everything that has to do with the UCM).
Holland first appeared in Captain America: Civil War in 2016, secondarily, and has since reverted to the Spider-Man costume as the lead in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). We also saw it last year in Avengers: Endgame .
His next movie bringing it to life will be in “Spider-Man 3” (it has no official title yet), of which we do not have any more details yet. And it sure isn’t the last one where he becomes Peter Parker. Here’s Holland for awhile.