Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home certainly looks exciting, but it sounds like things were equally exciting on the other side of the camera, too — especially in terms of the movie’s casting, which may hold a clue to some of the surprise cameos that may be in the film.
In a lengthy and quite interesting interview with GQ, Tom Holland revealed several facts about the making of the movie, all without spoiling anything directly. First, since the movie was supposed to come out before Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness but got moved up due to covid-19, the script needed a rewrite. But even then, according to Holland, during the shoot the script was being rewritten on an “almost daily” basis. Holland also wanted a rewrite on one of the big moments during the final part of the movie (which will almost certainly be a fight scene, this is a Marvel movie after all). From GQ: “I kept stopping and being like, ‘I’m so sorry, I just don’t believe what I’m saying.’ ” The director, Jon Watts, took him aside, and Holland told him: It wasn’t me. The scene was wrong. “We sat down, we went through it, and we came up with a new idea,” Holland says. “Then we pitched it to the writers, they rewrote it, and it works great.”
But the casting seems to have been the biggest issue. Thanks to the most recent trailer, we got confirmation that a bevy of past Spider-Man movie villains will be in the movie alongside Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, including Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Rhys Ifans’ Lizard, and Thomas Hayden Church’s Sandman (which, if you’re counting, is one member short of a Sinister Six — leaving space for the Michael Keaton’s Vulture from the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Tom Hardy’s Venom from Sony’s Spider-Man-adjacent films).
The film’s casting wasn’t easy, according to Holland, “Some people were trying to figure out whether they wanted to do it, and we needed all of them or none.” He could easily be talking about the villains here, and he very well may be. But if I can indulge in a bit of baseless speculation, I think No Way Home could get away without showing the faces of Dafoe, Ifans, or Sandman, the first of which could be played by any stuntman in the suit, and the latter two could appear solely in CG. Also, there are other options including Paul Giamatti’s Rhino, Bokeem Woodbine’s Shocker, Jared Leto’s upcoming Morbius, or even a new Spider-Man villain from one of the multiverses we haven’t seen. Basically, it doesn’t seem to be an “all or nothing” situation, or at least it didn’t have to be.
But if the rumours are to be believed, and Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s incarnations of Peter Parker will be showing up in the film, I can easily see them being a package deal. They’d either both need to be in the film or neither of them. And given Andrew Garfield’s heartbreak over his aborted stint as Spidey in The Amazing Spider-Man movies, it’s easy to understand why he would struggle with whether he would want to put on the mask again.
While we’re speculating, we also have to contend with the 25-year-old Holland’s feelings about his future as Spider-Man. “Maybe it is time for me to move on. Maybe what’s best for Spider-Man is that they do a Miles Morales film. I have to take Peter Parker into account as well, because he is an important part of my life. If I’m playing Spider-Man after I’m 30, I’ve done something wrong.”
It would be super-easy to introduce Miles in a movie about multiverses full of Spider-Men, and I wouldn’t put it past Marvel to manage to cast a character that important to the franchise and manage to keep it a secret. But it also seems like No Way Home is quite jam-packed enough, and the introduction of Miles — and the passing of the Spider-torch is important enough to the Marvel Cinematic Universe that it deserves its own movie. But who knows? Spider-Man: No Way Home hits theatres on December 16.