It must have been a daunting task for writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers to sit down and hammer out the screenplay for the project that eventually became Spider-Man: No Way Home, knowing full well they were facing a multiversal minefield.
Not only did the duo have to incorporate Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parkers into the mix, but there was also the small matter of five multiversal villains to contend with, never mind the direct continuation of Far From Home‘s cliffhanger ending, or the need to round out Tom Holland’s solo trilogy in narratively satisfying fashion.
It’s easy in hindsight to say that they pulled it off spectacularly, but during an appearance at IGN Fan Fest, the scribes admitted that bringing together the Holy Trinity of web-slingers was a constantly-evolving process that ended up being scrapped and rewritten countless times.
“When they got pulled into this movie, what condition were they in? What were they doing? What was their mindset? The end of the last Amazing Spider-Man had this really nice speech from Gwen about staying hopeful and everything. And immediately it became interesting to us. Well, what if Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, if his Peter Parker couldn’t do it, he couldn’t keep that hope. He was too hurt by what happened.
And so, that led us to the attitude that we found for him. And then we also had to think long and hard about where Tobey’s Spider-Man would be in. And that was a more difficult question because more time has gone by. And what has that guy been up to? And then of course the actors had opinions about what their Spider-Man, what their Peter Parkers should have been up to, and where they’d be coming from as well.
The story just evolves the entire time. This is all a collaborative experience with effort with Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal and Jon Watts and many more and we’re just all working together. Once we knew we had Tobey and Andrew, obviously we have an MCU Peter Parker story to tell, and we knew we’d be holding off on Tobey and Andrew till the third act, but we definitely talked a lot about how will they be coming in, so it didn’t feel like it was just Deus Ex Machina.”
As one of 2021’s most acclaimed movies regardless of genre, as well as the eighth highest-grossing title in the history of cinema, it can’t be denied that all of the sleepless nights were worth it. Fans most likely couldn’t have concocted a better version of Spider-Man: No Way Home in their heads, with the epic comic book adaptation delivering on the sky high expectations and then some.
