From the start, Spider-Man: No Way Home was marketed as a multiverse movie. Villains from previous Spider-Man films, such as Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus and Jamie Foxx’s Electro, appeared in trailers as Doctor Strange outright discussed the idea of alternate realities. It was a lot for Peter Parker to take in, as all he wanted to do was go to college without everyone knowing that he moonlighted as a superhero. Fortunately, he got some help in No Way Home in the form of variants of himself. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprised their roles, allowing all three live-action Spider-Men to fight together on the big screen.
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While Maguire and Garfield’s entrances were spectacular, they weren’t all that surprising. Foxx posted images on social media featuring the different versions of the titular hero prior to the release of No Way Home. Meanwhile, a delivery driver thought they spotted Garfield near the film’s set in Atlanta, Georgia. It was hard to convince anyone that the movie would only feature one Spider-Man, but director Jon Watts and his collaborators still had to act like it was business as usual.
During a recent panel at the Mediterrane Film Festival, hosted by Collider, Watts was asked about the lengths the No Way Home production went to keep the cameos a secret. He explained that shooting during the pandemic helped, but there were still challenges on set.
“There had been rumors that Tobey and Andrew were going to be in the movie, and this is while we’re shooting,” Watts said. “It’s another example of how you can have a script that’s working, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. You can keep making it better. We were writing the script, and we were working on where we wanted to reveal the guys, and it always seemed like Peter’s going to be sad because Aunt May has just died, and that the portals are going to open, and the two Spider-Men are going to step out.”
Despite settling on the idea of having Peter’s new friends introduce themselves after Aunt May’s death, Watts revealed that social media forced him to change things up because people had the same idea he did.
“It’s probably a rooftop somewhere. It’s all sort of hazy. You’re still trying to figure it out,” he continued. “Then I was on Reddit, and I was looking at people who had already made fan art of, ‘This is probably what it’s going to be like when the two Spider-Men get revealed.’ It was on a rooftop. It was sad, two Doctor Strange portals were open and two Spider-Men are stepping out. I was like, ‘Well, we can’t do that. If that’s exactly what everyone thinks we’re going to do, we absolutely can’t do that.’
Of course, instead of having Maguire and Garfield’s characters walk out of portals in front of Holland’s hero, they appear in the Leeds household, where Ned and MJ are searching for a way to find their grieving friend. The moment works really well, and Watts has Reddit to thank for that.
Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s Big Moment Works Because It Lets the Heroes Be Themselves
As soon as Garfield’s Spider-Man exits the portal, No Way Home‘s tone shifts. Seeing Aunt May die is rough, but it’s easy not to dwell on the moment when MJ is throwing rolls at a man who claims to be a variant of her boyfriend, and Ned is making fun of Maguire’s character’s attire. The older Spider-Men get to show off their personalities before jumping right into the middle of the action and helping Peter come to terms with his loss. After seeing the final cut, it’s hard to imagine the sequence going any other way.
Are you glad that Jon Watts decided to change Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s entrances in Spider-Man: No Way Home? How do you feel about the movie all these years later? Let us know in the comments below!
