With three heroes, five villains, and a whole bunch of supporting characters Spider-Man: No Way Home crammed a lot into its two and a half hour runtime. But, sadly, there wasn’t room for everything. When director Jon Watts was assembling the movie, some awesome-sounding scenes had to be cut for time – and one of them meant a lot to star Tom Holland.
We already knew that Holland’s younger brother Harry had shot a cameo as a young purse-snatcher who ends up webbed by Spidey, but now we have a peek at the scene courtesy of a new behind-the-scenes video. Holland went out of his way to ensure that Harry got the full Spidey experience, which he explained during a recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show.
“We cast Harry and he’s on set. I go up to the stunt coordinator and I’m like, ‘Please, just whatever you do with the stunt, make it so he’s upside down. We’re doing the scene. Harry’s upside down swinging back and forth. Bless him, he’s doing a really good job. And as the day’s going on he’s got these lines and he’s starting to forget his lines and his eyes are about to pop out of his head.”
It must have been disappointing for the Hollands that this moment ended up on the cutting room floor, but maybe we’ll see an extended cut of the movie one day, although Marvel Studios doesn’t have never shown much interest in Director’s Cuts.
This behind-the-scenes video also shows that a surprising amount of the effects were practical, rather than CGI. It’s natural to assume that a modern blockbuster is primarily shot against greenscreen with a lot of digital trickery, though the production designers, pyrotechnics, and stunt team look dedicated to realizing the action in-camera.
No Way Home will be released on VOD and Blu-ray in early 2022, so let’s hope we get a load of deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes footage showing just how this marvelous movie was brought to life.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now in theaters.