Following the release of the official No Way Home trailer, there has been a lot of Spider-Man hype building in the last couple of days. Predictably, a lot of this surrounds the long-rumoured return of former Spideys Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to the role as part of some multiverse shenanigans, but honestly – they aren’t worth getting that excited over.
Let me say first of all that I love the Spider-Man movies. I’ve seen every Spidey flick since Spider-Man 3 in the cinema within a week of its opening. I like The Amazing Spider-Man. I wish we’d gotten the end of the trilogy with Shailene Woodley as Mary-Jane. This is not just MCU fangirling in action. I don’t want to be a revisionist either; the Maguire Spideys, along with X-Men and Batman Begins, set the tone for current superhero cinema, and while they lack the polish of Spider-Man: Homecoming or the spectacle of Avengers: Endgame, their importance cannot be overstated.
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I like the Maguire movies and the Garfield movies. That doesn’t mean they should come back.
A couple of months ago, I explained exactly why I thought this, arguing that Holland, easily the best blend of Peter Parker and Spidey, didn’t need a crossover to top off his trilogy. Having seen the trailer, I’d like to soften my stance. I have no issues with No Way Home being a crossover – but I still don’t want Maguire or Garfield to come back. Instead, it should be all about the villains.
The trailer suggests that’s the case anyway, with Doc Ock in the spotlight and Dafoe’s Goblin’s pumpkin bombs – plus a few hidden villains – but Marvel has a history of editing trailers. The Infinity War trailer deliberately obscured the amount of Infinity Stones Thanos had in his gauntlet, and it could well be that Maguire and Garfield are in a few scenes already. Personally, my money’s on Doc Ock’s “Hello, Peter,” being directed to Maguire rather than Holland, but that’s not really the point. The point is we’re all getting hyped up over the possibility that Maguire and Garfield might be back, but the trailer confirms their villains are returning, and that’s all that matters.
Dafoe’s performance as the Green Goblin is still an all-timer in the world of comic book films. This was before comic book movies had the serious pull to attract any star on the planet, and villains were typically associated with a campy schtick. Dafoe leaned into that just enough for it to be familiar, while also elevating the idea of a comic book villain into a story with heart. Alfred Molina, while perhaps not quite on Dafoe’s level, gave us the best comic book fight ever filmed in Spider-Man 2; that No Way Home’s trailer heavily features Spidey – and Strange, who might not be Strange – atop a train is likely no coincidence.
As for Spidey 3, it was overloaded with villains and as result, none of them were memorable. Tom Hardy’s much better Venom-Eddie Brock combo means there’s no need to rehash Topher Grace’s version, and while Thomas Haden Church never got much of a chance as Sandman, No Way Home isn’t the place for a do-over. With the original Goblin, we don’t need the New Goblin to make an appearance this time either.
Jumping over to the Garfield rogues, we don’t need the Dane DeHaan Goblin either. However, while TASM isn’t as beloved for its villains (or for anything, really), its casting is fantastic. Again, we don’t need to think about DeHaan, but Jamie Foxx as Electro? Rhys Ifans as Curt Connors? Paul Giamatti as, for some reason, Rhino? None reached their potential in TASM, and bringing them all back for a major role feels like asking for trouble, but the villains have always been worth paying more attention to.
It’s natural that the excitement is bubbling up around the actual Spideys, especially following Into the Spider-Verse, but Holland versus old villains seems like a much more compelling pitch. When Maguire and Garfield do show up, even if it’s just a short cameo, I’ll be all aboard the hype train for it, but just knowing Goblin and Doc Ock are there is enough. They were always the most interesting part anyway.
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