Was the ‘Tray Catch’ scene in ‘Spider-Man’ done without special effects?

Claim:

Tobey Maguire performed the “tray catch” scene in “Spider-Man” (2002) without any special effects.

Judgement:

Ever since the first ‘Spider-Man’ movie With Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst was released in 2002, one particular scene has captivated viewers: the moment when Maguire, who played Spider-Man, caught items on Dunst’s tray after it flew into the air.

Social media users have repeatedly claimed that no visual effects (VFX) were used to film the stunt. One such Reddit post, which had received over 6,000 upvotes at the time of writing, claimed: “The tray scene in the first Spider-man (sic) movie wasn’t CGI. Tobey Maguire actually caught the tray with all the food on it.

The tray scene in the first Spider-Man movie wasn’t CGI. Tobey Maguire earnestly caught the tray with all the food on it. It took 156 attempts.
byu/DarthVader_2006 uninteresting

X users have made similar claims, with examples coming in both March and June 2024.

You can watch the full scene below.

According to sites like Screen Geek, The Independent, BuzzFeed and Metro, the scene was indeed done without the use of visual effects. According to The Independent, both producer John Dykstra and Dunst stated in separate DVD commentaries that the scene was all Maguire, with no special effects.

“This next joke here, where he catches all this stuff, he actually did it. Pretty good. Take 156,” John Dykstra – the same head of VFX for the first film in the Star Wars franchise – is reported to have said. “Not CGI by the way, that’s all Tobey, which is pretty impressive,” Dunst reportedly said in the commentary. “They used sticky glue to stick his hand to the tray.”

While we have not been able to independently confirm these accounts as of yet, a user on YouTube has uploaded footage of the DVD commentary video:

We’ve reached out to reps for Maguire, Dunst, Dykstra and director Sam Raimi seeking confirmation; we will update this story as soon as we receive a response.

Sources