#Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe Break Marvel Record With Spider-Man: No Way Home

Having first appeared in Spider-Man in 2002, Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe have broken a longstanding Marvel record.

Spider-Man: No Way Home has created some new Marvel records with its $1.6 billion run, but one unexpected record has been broken by two of its returning stars from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe both reprised their roles as Peter Parker and Norman Osborn respectively, and this has been enough to put them in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the longest careers as live-action Marvel characters. As Spider-Man: No Way Home is effectively a continuation of the movies featuring Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-men, this means that in total Maguire’s latest appearance comes 19 years and 225 days after the premiere of the first big-screen Spider-Man movie back in 2002.

Willem Dafoe shares the accolade with his co-star, having also appeared in the first of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies, and the pair take over the previous record which was held by Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart for their respective X-Men roles of Wolverine and Charles Xavier, which both spanned 16 years and 232 days between the original X-Men movie and Logan in 2017. Of course, if Marvel had been able to coax Jackman back for a cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he would have once again reclaimed his title.

Spider-Man: No Way Home arrived with a lot of fanfare at the end of 2021, becoming an instant smash that has just continued to grow and grow despite being released during pandemic restrictions. The film has now become the sixth-biggest movie of all time, the highest-grossing Spider-Man and Sony release of all time, and is also one of the highest-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes. As one of the few MCU movies to have surpassed the very high fan expectation put on it, the film has managed to raise the bar for the run of massive Marvel sequels coming over the next 18 months.

Spider-Man: No Way Home Also Extended the Tenure of the MCU’s Longest Running Character

While there have been several long-standing characters in Marvel productions outside the MCU, 2008’s Iron Man introduced a new set of Marvel characters to the world of cinema, and one of those has stuck around for longer than most. Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan managed to extend his MCU record for being the longest service star in the franchise when appearing in Spider-Man: No Way Home. However, that record is going to be relatively short-lived as another franchise icon is all set to take the crown.

When the Secret Invasion series arrives on Disney+, Favreau will hand over the title of longest-serving star to Samuel L. Jackson, who made his first appearance as Nick Fury in the post-credit scene of Iron Man, when he set about enlisting Tony Start into his Avengers initiative. While he may be growing older, Fury is still an integral part of the Marvel franchise and it doesn’t look like he is going to be giving up his record any time in the near future.


Spider-Man: No Way Home will be making its way on to Digital HD on March 1st, with DVD and Blu-ray releases following soon after. Secret Invasion was originally thought to be coming to Disney+ later this year, but has no current premiere date.

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