Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe create Guinness World Record for longest career as live action Marvel characters

Screengrab from the 2002 movie 'Spider-Man'.

Actors  Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe have together broken the Guinness World Record for the longest career as a live action Marvel character after reprising their iconic roles in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

It has been 19 years 225 days since the actors first appeared as  Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in Spider-Man (2002).

The previous record for this title was of 16 years 232 days and was set by Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) and Patrick Stewart (Professor X), who made their first appearance in X-Men (2000) and most recent appearance in Logan (2017).

Read more: 'Spider-Man' powers its way into 6th place on all-time box office list

Speaking to Deadline about playing Spider-Man after about two decades with two other web slingers (Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield) in the latest release, 46-year-old Maguire, said it was a rich and emotional experience.

Actor Tobey Maguire has played "Spider-Man" in three movies before the latest instalment with fellow actor Tom Holland in the lead.

“I was just grateful every day. Really, it was such a rich experience... the kind of sharing of something and the brotherhood of it. It was just so rich, emotional," Maguire said. "I’m not sitting there conceptually thinking about that all the time, but I would have moments where that kind of stuff would hit me. You know, day to day, it was just a beautiful kind of unfolding of this story and these relationships."

Elaborating on evolution of Spider-Man: No Way Home, he added, “The way those films and characters evolved in those films are unique, and then to bring all of that together, including all of our supervillains and all of that, it was pretty wild to witness the immensity of all of this history coming together and being put into this standalone, worthwhile story.”

Read more: 'Spider-Man' Tobey Maguire sued over poker winnings

In its sixth week out, the Sony superhero yarn with Tom Holland in the title role took in an estimated $14.1 million in the United States and Canada after slipping briefly from the top rung last weekend, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported.

Globally, "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is expected $1.69 billion total would push it past blockbusters "Jurassic World" ($1.67 billion) and "The Lion King" ($1.66 billion) into sixth place on the all-time list, according to Box Office Mojo, a division of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).

The achievement is all the more notable given that it came during the coronavirus pandemic, when theatergoers have been skeptical about returning to auditoriums amid an Omicron-fueled surge in the number of cases.