Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are going to be in the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home. We don’t know that for definite yet but… come on. There’s no smoke without fire, and thick black plumes have been emanating from every on-set rumour, piece of casting news, and public appearance by either Tom Holland or Zendaya. The Spidey actor famously cannot keep a secret, so the fact he’s been remarkably tight-lipped on the rumours suggests he has been specifically briefed on not spilling the beans. While the appearance of Maguire and Garfield in Spider-Man: No Way Home is not official, it seems like Hollywood’s worst kept secret, even though everyone is doing their utmost to keep it. In all the excitement though, no one seems to be pointing out how bad this idea is.
Let’s rewind a little bit. This all seemed to start with Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, the best Spidey movie of the lot and a contender for greatest animated film ever. It’s a crowded field, but the way Spider-Verse understands its source material is phenomenal. It’s also brilliantly inventive with its animation and storytelling, bold in its direction, brave in its willingness to take risks, and superbly funny, but it’s not the ‘Verse’ angle that makes it this way.
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One of the characters dropped into Miles’ world is Gwen Stacy (or Spider-Woman or Spider-Gwen, if you prefer), and she was so brilliant she’s getting her own spin-off, as well as a leading role in the sequel. Spider-Ham and Spider-Noir were also touted for potential spin-offs, with the entire cast shining in the teamup flick. A bigger issue here is not which characters were brought into Miles’ universe, but that any were at all. The Spider-Verse film is genius for many more reasons than it being a multiverse film; this team could have created a magnificent Miles Morales movie with just Miles. I’m not sure the MCU has understood that.
For all its faults, the MCU typically knows how to tell a story. Spider-Man: No Way Home is not a full MCU film though – it’s half Sony, and Sony’s record is a little more spotty. See: Charlie's Angels, Jumanji: The Next Level, Men In Black: International, and Ghostbusters in recent years. If you leave out The Incredible Hulk, produced before the MCU was really a thing, the MCU has never missed the ball by as much as Sony has.
No Way Home might be great, but it just feels like the multiverse angle – if that is what happens – is being wedged in. Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man was crucial in establishing modern superhero cinema, but Maguire hasn’t been in a movie since 2017, when he narrated The Boss Baby, and hasn’t been in a live action film since three years before that. His Peter Parker was great at the time, but how does going back even work? Either he's changed significantly, in which case it's a completely different character we don't really need to revisit, or it's the same character but older, in which case why is Peter Parker still stuck in the past? A Spidey 4 at the time with Bruce Campbell as Mysterio would have been brilliant. By now though, the ship has both sailed and sunk. And yeah, maybe we'll get an older, out of shape, grizzled and disaffected Spidey this time around, but haven't we just done that schtick with Spider-Verse?
Garfield, on the other hand… look, he's a decent actor. I'd even say in his moments, he is the best Spidey – he's just conversely the worst Peter, and never manages to flit between the two personas half as well as Tom Holland does. I just don't understand why anyone wants him back. I'm sure there are a few contrarians and pineapple-on-pizza enjoyers that relish having delightfully incorrect opinions, but these are horrifically average movies. Things like this are subjective, to a degree, but both Amazing Spider-Man films struggle for any kind of foothold, have tremendously naff villains that they manage to somehow both overuse and underuse, and rely entirely on Garfield's dynamic with Emma Stone. Thankfully, that last part is pretty great, but two actors having nice chemistry is hardly a reason to uproot the universe – especially when Stone's character is dead. Electro is returning, again played by Jamie Foxx, and it feels as though the villains deserve the retribution of a crossover far more than the leads.
Any hype around the return has been severely dampened by the fact we know it’s happening, plus it’s not even like multiverses are a cool, new thing. Loki is exploring them right now, WandaVision created a pseudo-multiverse (more like a universe within a universe), and the next Doctor Strange movie is literally named In the Multiverse of Madness – it's getting to be a theme, and not a cute little arm-chopped-off nod to Star Wars like the MCU did in Phase Two. It might get old very quickly.
It feels like the whole concept is either an attempt to cash in on Spider-Verse or is being done at the behest of fans. Neither of those strategies lead to long-term success; films take so long to make that it's difficult to jump on trends, and fans are so numerous and so loud that trying to appease them all leads to disaster. I'm not sure my opinion is all that popular, but certainly, I'm not the only one who has it. I've seen every Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 3 in the cinema – I know, what a one to start with, right? – so I think I'm in the basic group of 'Spider-Man fans'. It feels a little desperate, and Spider-Man is not a series that should ever need to be desperate. Holland plays the lead role wonderfully – the focus on his life as a regular teenager has never been done like this before and he's a leading light in the Avengers property as a whole. No Way Home doesn't need gimmicks to succeed, and it feels like that's all Maguire and Garfield are.
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