Doing whatever a spider can has apparently taken its toll on Tobey Maguire.
The Spider-Man star might be forced to hang up those red and blue tights and sit out Columbia Pictures' hotly anticipated sequel because of a bad back.
According to the actor's camp, Maguire is still recovering from "mild discomfort in his back," which he aggravated while shooting two physically demanding roles: Spider-Man, followed 18 months later by the four-month shoot for Universal's horse-racing drama, Seabiscuit, in which he played jockey Red Pollard. But his rep says Maguire should be ready to go.
"With an April 12 start date around the corner, everyone involved wants to be certain he is able to do the intense stunts," Maguire's rep, Kelly Bush, said in a statement, noting that he's in "the final stages of healing."
Maguire snagged a whopping $17 million payday--more than four times what he made for Spider-Man--to reprise his role as the friendly neighborhood arachnid superhero in director Sam Raimi's The Amazing Spider-Man.
But if Maguire's still in sick bay come early April and not deemed not well enough to battle the criminally demented likes of Dr. Octopus (played by Alfred Molina), studio sources tell Daily Variety that producers are considering replacing Maguire with Jake Gyllenhaal.
Gyllenhaal has become something of a hot commodity in Hollywood after his star turns in Donnie Darko, The Good Girl and Moonlight Mile.
Besides his geeky teenage looks and passable resemblance to Maguire, Gyllenhaal also has something else going for him--chemistry. He happens to be the offscreen boyfriend of Maguire's Spider-Man costar Kirsten Dunst, who plays Peter Parker's love interest, Mary Jane Watson.
With the sequel start date less than a month away, Gyllenhaal probably needs to make sure to renew that Bally's membership. In order to swing from skyscrapers, Gyllenhaal would need to bulk up, like Maguire did for the first film.
In The Amazing Spider-Man, our fearless webslinger must save the world from the clutches of his arch-nemesis, the freaky four-tentacled evil scientist Dr. Otto Octavius, aka Dr. Octopus, or, as Marvel Comic devotees lovingly call him, Doc Ock.
Production on the sequel has already been a bit sticky. Shooting was supposed to commence in January but was delayed to accommodate Maguire, who didn't wrap Seabiscuit until last month. Further complicating the calendar is Dunst's commitment to start filming the tennis flick, Wimbledon, this summer, as well as Columbia's insistence on meeting the Spidey sequel's release date on May 7, 2004.
The studio has a good reason to stay on schedule. Last year, on May 3, the first Spider-Man opened and went on to become the biggest-grossing film of 2002, with $800 million in worldwide ticket sales at the box office.
Meanwhile, in other Spidey news, a B-movie filmmaker has spun a lawsuit against Columbia, accusing the company of stealing the plot of his 17-year-old screenplay for Spider-Man.
Writer-director Ted Newsom, the force behind such low-budget epics as Monsters & Maniacs and Wolfman Chronicles, claims that a Spider-Man script he penned with partner John Brancato for Cannon Films back in 1985 was used as the basis for David Koepp's Spidey screenplay.
Koepp was awarded sole screenplay credit by the Writers Guild of America. But, according to his suit, Newsom claims Columbia failed to include his work in documents filed with the WGA, meaning he never had a shot at getting a credit.
Newsom seeks more than $31 million in damages.
A spokesman for Columbia declined to comment on the Maguire report or the lawsuit, pending litigation.