When Spider-Man came out in 2002, I was so blown away. It really was the first super-hero movie of its kind. We had had the Superman movies of the 70’s and 80’s, and the Batman movies of the 80’s and 90’s, but this was so new, and so visually stunning. It really opened up the door to the era of super-hero films we have today.

One of the most impressive scenes that may have been overlooked by fans that didn’t realize a practical stunt was being executed, was the scene where MJ (Kirsten Dunst) slips in the cafeteria and Peter (Tobey Maguire) catches her, her tray, and all of her food. This wasn’t done with CGI or any camera tricks. Maguire actually pulled this off! After quite a few attempts, that is.

In the extras for the DVD, head of the VFX team for the film, John Dykstra said about the scene: “This next gag here, where he catches all this stuff, he actually did that. Pretty good. Take 156.” It’s pretty incredible that they let it go on that long! He must have gotten really close over and over, because doing that 156 times just sounds very discouraging. Dunst also commented on the scene in the commentary, and said, “Not CGI by the way, that’s all Tobey,” she comments, “which is pretty impressive. They used sticky glue stuff to stick his hand to the tray.”

It’s pretty awesome they stuck with it and got the shot, because it ended up being a very cool one.

via: Independent