Tobey Maguire No Longer in Ang Lee’s LIFE OF PI

Well, it seems that Tobey Maguire gets bumped out of Ang Lee‘s Life of Pi, due in theaters on November 21st 2012, as a writer who interviews the main character.

Lee’s adaptation of the fantasy novel by Yann Martel was supposed to be a reunion of sorts between him and Spider-Man star, but Maguire’s scenes have been discarded and the part will now be played by Brit thesp Rafe Spall.

Lee told THR:

To be consistent with the other casting choices made for the film, I decided to go with an entirely international cast. I very much admire Tobey and look forward to working with him again in the future.

Maguire insisted that he had no hard feelings, adding:

I fully support Ang’s decision to go a different direction for this role in Life of Pi. Ang shared a lot of the film with me, and what I saw was absolutely beautiful.

A source close to the set also told THR that Lee deemed Maguire ‘too famous’ next to his relatively unknown cast-mates on the film.

However, Maguire won’t take part in awards season at all, after Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, was moved off its December 25th calendar slot and into summer 2013.

Spall previous film credits include supporting roles in One Day and Prometheus.