Stars out for West End premiere of Spider-Man 3

11 April 2012
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

The UK premiere of Spider-Man 3 takes place in London tonight - marking the start of the cinema blockbuster season.

Tobey Maguire, 31, returns as the comic-book legend following his starring role in the first two Spider-Man films.

The movie, rumoured to be the last in the lucrative franchise, had its world premiere in Tokyo earlier this month.

Director Sam Raimi, who has made all three Spider-Man films, is thought to want to direct forthcoming film The Hobbit instead of another super-hero movie.

Scroll down for more ...

Spider-man 3 stars Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire

Lord Of The Rings film-maker Peter Jackson was originally tipped to direct The Hobbit, but fell out with the studio New Line.

US actress Kirsten Dunst, 24, who plays love interest Mary Jane Watson, is attending the London Leicester Square premiere tonight.

All eyes will be on whether she brings her British boyfriend, Razorlight star Johnny Borrell, 27, to the event.

US director Raimi has been a life-long Spider-Man fan and made all the star actors study the original comics to get into their roles.

Stan Lee, the man who created the character, has cameo roles in all three films.

This year's movie features two new villains - Sandman, played by Thomas Haden Church, and Venom, with Topher Grace in the role.

Peter Parker/Spider-Man will also do battle with his inner demons.

Sony Pictures has spent about £124 million on the latest sequel, with a large proportion of the budget going towards special effects.

Combined, the original two films took around £800 million in the box office.

The debut Spider-Man film was so successful that the release date of the third instalment was already set when Spider-Man 2 was released.

U2 stars Bono and The Edge are also rumoured to be working on a forthcoming Spider-Man musical.

Other blockbusters to follow this year include Shrek The Third, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End, and Ocean's 13.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in