Filmmaker Jon Watts has revealed that his 2021 Marvel and Sony feature “Spider-Man: No Way Home” underwent some key changes – and all in response to posts on Reddit.
The film famously sees Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprise their past Spider-Man roles alongside the current Spidey played by Tom Holland. The pair’s roles are proper supporting characters with multiple scenes.
Speaking with Collider at the Mediterrane Film Festival, Watts says the way the pair enter the film was quite different from his original idea because a fan on Reddit accurately predicted that idea:
“There had been rumors that Tobey and Andrew were going to be in the movie, and this is while we’re shooting. 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.
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.'”
That led to the key change of the pair appearing at Ned’s grandma’s house in Queens, adding that “it made perfect sense in the story because it’s kind of the first time we leave Peter’s narrative”.
Holland’s Peter Parker does end up meeting Maguire and Garfield’s Spider-Men on a roof, but after he’s met Peter’s friends. He adds Tobey and Andrew brought a lot of ideas to the shaping of the rooftop scene.
The comments come as Holland’s fourth “Spider-Man” film, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, gets underway later this month in the UK.
