Tom Holland described Spider-Man: No Way Home as the single most ambitious standalone superhero movie ever made a long time ago, and you get the distinct impression that he’s not lying.
To fully understand what’s going to unfold when the multiversal blockbuster swings into theaters this coming Friday, you’ll need to be familiar with both Sam Raimi’s original trilogy and Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man duology, not to mention Holland’s franchise and probably Disney Plus series Loki, which kicked the doors to alternate realities wide open.
As a result, fans are either revisiting the Spidey back catalogue, or checking out the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield eras for the first time. As you can see from the reactions below, it’s led to Raimi becoming one of Twitter’s top topics as audiences re-immerse themselves in his world.
The third installment may have been overstuffed to the point of almost collapsing in on itself, but his first two Spider-Man films are still held in hugely high regard by fans and critics as a pair of all-time great superhero stories. It’s also incredibly fitting that Raimi’s work is being reappraised before a Peter Parker adventure that has a major role for Doctor Strange, who gets a sequel in May 2022 that was directed by the man himself.
