Spidey gets a hometown debut[E!Online]

This year, Spider-Man will cast his web straight from Europe to Aunt May's doorstep.

The much-hyped third installment of the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man franchise will have its U.S. premiere Apr. 30 in Queens--Peter Parker's hometown--as part of the sixth annual Tribeca Film Festival.

Spidey's Stateside debut will come after the film touches down in more than 40 foreign cities, starting with Tokyo, where Spider Man 3's star-studded world premiere is scheduled for Apr. 16. Tobey Maguire's red-suited alter ego will then swing into select theaters across Asia, the Middle East and Europe before heading home to Gotham.

What promises to be the darkest chapter to date in the superhero saga (and not just because Maguire wears black for a spell) opens at the UA Kaufman Astoria 14 and kicks off the Tribeca fest's "Spider-Man Week in NYC," which will also feature midnight and doubleheader screenings of the first two films in the trilogy, leading up to Spider-Man 3's worldwide release May 4.

Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and presumably most of the movie's big stars are expected to show up at the festivities in New York after they wrap up an eight-city overseas publicity tour.

In addition to the red (or in this case, black) carpet premiere in Queens, Tribeca organizers will also be hosting four simultaneous free screenings in New York's other four boroughs and Tribeca Talks, the festival's panel series, will present discussions entitled "Does Whatever a Spider Can," with the film's producers, and "Heroes for Hire," with execs from Marvel and Dark Horse Comics and X-Men: The Last Stand cowriter Zak Penn.

"Bringing exciting and new events to NYC and its community is one of the major goals of the festival," said Jane Rosenthal, who cofounded the cinematic event with Robert De Niro and her husband, philanthropist Craig Hatkoff, as a means of boosting the city's economy and promoting culture after 9-11.

"Hosting the U.S. premiere of Spider-Man 3 in Queens and celebrating the release throughout the festival will give us the opportunity to reach out to a new community as well as to the devoted fan base of the Spider-Man series."

None of whom should be disappointed when it comes to plot development and sex appeal this year. Judging from the trailers boasting Peter Parker and M.J. stealing a romantic moment in a made-to-order web spun high above the city, the emotional sequences between Maguire and Dunst look to be going nowhere but up in terms of their intensity.

And with great-looking costars come great-looking love scenes which, according to Maguire, weren't quite as easy to pull off as one might expect.

"Probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do as Spider-Man was kiss Kirsten Dunst," the actor playfully tells Parade in an interview for Sunday's issue.

"When we shot that [now classic and now much-parodied] scene where we kissed in the alleyway and I was hanging upside down, it was really late at night, it was raining, and the whole time I had rainwater running up my nose. Then, when Kirsten rolled back the wet mask, she cut off the air completely."

Obviously, a hero's work is never done.