Doc Ock’s No Way Home Trailer Line Hints At Hiding Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man

Doc Ock’s line in Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer could hint at hiding Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man. As part of Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures’ agreement to share Spider-Man on the big screen, the studios decided to reboot the web-slinger with Tom Holland. He became the third live-action Spider-Man actor, following in the footsteps of Maguire and Andrew Garfield. Spider-Man: No Way Home is Holland’s sixth appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but this one is heavily expected to feature multiple versions of Spider-Man.

After great anticipation, the first trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home arrived, but it did so without an appearance by these other Spider-Men. That didn’t stop the footage from connecting heavily to the previous Spider-Man franchises through the power of the multiverse though. Multiple villains were confirmed or teased in the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer, but it was Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2 who got the biggest moment of them all. His appearance seemed to tease a confrontation between Doc Ock and Holland’s Spider-Man.

Once Molina’s Doc Ock steps out from the smoke, the only line he gets in Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s trailer is, “Hello, Peter.” The trailer immediately cuts to Holland’s Peter Parker on top of a car and the Iron Spider armor suiting up. Marvel and Sony clearly want fans to believe that Otto Octavius is speaking to Holland’s Spider-Man here, but that this could be a clever bit of misdirection by the studios to avoid featuring the appearance of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man. This isn’t to imply that the Spider-Man on top of the car is actually going to be Maguire’s but rather that Doc Ock’s line in the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer is taken from another point in the movie where he is talking to Maguire.

It won’t be hard for Spider-Man: No Way Home to explain how Doc Ock knows Holland’s Peter is Spider-Man, as it is plastered all over the news. The difference, though, is that Otto greeting Holland’s Spider-Man in this fashion wouldn’t have any significance. The MCU’s version of Peter Parker has never met an Otto Ocvatius (as far as the MCU has shown), and everyone in the world knows Peter is Spider-Man thanks to Mysterio. Although the shot of Doc Ock’s robotic legs climbing onto a highway match with Holland’s surroundings in the next shot, the actual glimpse of Otto sees him surrounded by smoke. Marvel could have digitally changed the background to match the city destruction feel and hide the fact that Doc Ock is talking to Maguire’s Spider-Man.

There’s no guarantee that Marvel did manipulate Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s trailer to hide any indication that Doc Ock is talking to Maguire’s Spider-Man. Fans can very well take the footage at face value, and that might even be the best strategy. However, MCU marketing has increasingly used CGI to change scenes and hide certain details. Avengers: Endgame did this repeatedly to hide costumes, locations, and characters, while Avengers: Infinity War famously included a group running shot that was nowhere to be found in the final cut. The return of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man is still only heavily rumored for Spider-Man: No Way Home, so it won’t be surprising if Marvel and Sony employ some digital trickery during the marketing campaign to keep that reveal for theaters.