Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts has said that the big reveal of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire in the movie was changed, because fans had already guessed their original plan on Reddit.
The 2021 film saw the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Peter Parker, played by Tom Holland, team up with previous versions of the character brought in from their respective universes. Maguire played the character from 2002-07, while Garfield appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man as well as its sequel from 2012-14.
Both characters were part of separate universes, but brought into the MCU for this film as it explored a larger Multiverse arc. Fans speculated online that the previous actors would join Holland, although it was not confirmed until the film’s released.
Speaking to Collider, the director looked back on the production of the movie, saying that they were still sketching out how to reveal Maguire and Garfield’s Spider-Men when he read a fan theory on Reddit that matched what they were planning to do.
“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. 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’”.
Rather than being frustrated, Watts said he relished the challenge. “It reminds me of a Buster Keaton quote. He said, ‘I like the audience to think that they’ve outguessed me, and then I double-cross them’” he said. “I love that approach to storytelling, where you trust that the audience is smart, and they can see the moves, and they know and understand the genre, and they’re looking for you to surprise them”.
His solution was to move the Spider-Men reveals to Ned’s (Jacob Batalon) house, precisely because it’s not what the audience expected. “So, after I saw all this fan art, and I’ve decided, ‘We absolutely can’t do just exactly what everyone thinks we’re going to do,’ I was like, ‘What does no one expect that we’re going to do? What’s something that no one’s going to see coming?’ I was like, ‘Probably having the two Spider-Men appear at Ned’s Filipino grandma’s house in Queens. I don’t think anyone was doing fan art of that on Reddit’”.
Spider-Man: No Way Home went on to make $1.9billion (£1.4billion) worldwide at the box office, The most successful non-Avengers MCU movie and the third most successful MCU film to date.
Spider-Man star Tom Holland was recently revealed as being on the shortlist for the next James Bond, which prompted sceptical responses from fans online.