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Tobey Maguire took off his Spider-Man mask all the time because Sony was afraid it felt like Power Rangers
Sony was concerned that Spider-Man would look like a Power Ranger if he emoted through his mask
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When you watch Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy you might notice that Tobey Maguire takes his mask off a lot. Sometimes there were reasons, like the mask being struck by fire during the train scene in Spider-Man 2. Other times were ridiculous, like the scene in Spider-Man 3 where Peter removes his mask for a split second before attending a ceremony for Spider-Man. As a result, the frequency of Tobey’s Spider-Man removing his mask has become a running joke in the fandom.
It turns out there’s a reason for this, and it came from Sony. Al Gough and Miles Millar, who worked on the story treatment for Spider-Man 2, said that Sony was worried about the movie looking like a Power Rangers episode. As a result, there was a “mask off mandate.”
“The other thing too, which is interestin,g is from the first movie, because again, this is the old days before now when you’ve got the eyes moving and stuff, is [Sony] is like, ‘We need to get his mask off more in situations.” Al Gough says during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
“Because [Toby] had done some ADR in the first movie with the Green Goblin, and they were all worried before the movie came out,” Miles Millar adds. “There’s a scene of them on the roof, it was Green Goblin talking to Spider-Man, they both had masks on, their mouths didn’t move, it was like two masked figures. It felt like Power Rangers. So, they were really worried. They were like, ‘We can’t do this again.’ So, in the second movie he’s always taking his mask off and talking.”
And here I thought people just enjoyed looking at Tobey Maguire’s face.
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