Tom Holland Reveals Spider-Man: No Way Home BTS Chaos

Production on Spider-Man: No Way Home was so chaotic, the script was being rewritten as filming progressed. The MCU has enjoyed an eventful year after taking 2020 off, and it will close 2021 out with a massive theatrical event in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Directed by Jon Watts, the third and potentially final MCU Spider-Man movie will find Peter Parker (Tom Holland) grappling with the ramifications of his identity being revealed to the world. As the pressure gets to be too much, he turns to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for a solution, but when his spell goes terribly wrong, the multiverse is split wide open.

So paves the way for No Way Home‘s main event: The returns of numerous past Spider-Man actors, stemming from Sam Raimi’s trilogy and Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man series. Though most eyes have been turned to the question of whether Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield will turn up, there’s been a great deal of more information regarding the villains. As this week’s Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer confirmed, those like Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and Lizard will be popping up alongside Electro (Jamie Foxx) and Doc Ock (Alfred Molina).

With so many characters at play in Spider-Man: No Way Home, one might assume the plot was carefully mapped out well before filming began. Not so. According to a new profile on Holland from GQ, production was rather chaotic due to uncertainty over the cast and scheduling. Right before filming began, some key actors hadn’t signed on, and their absences would’ve impacted the entire plot. Holland explained, “Some people were trying to figure out whether they wanted to do it, and we needed all of them or none.” Additionally, the decision to move No Way Home before 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness changed the story, which was still being altered once filming actually did begin. Holland recalled, “You could ask the director, ‘What happens in act three?’ And his response would be, ‘I’m still trying to figure it out.’“

One has to hope all these last-minute rewrites won’t show in the finished product. Like most MCU movies, Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s place on the release calendar matters because its story will likely impact other films. This one in particular will probably have some major implications for other movies since it delves so strongly into the multiverse. Story adjustments due to scheduling changes must be frustrating, but in the case of the MCU, they are also necessary.

The casting component to all this will surely raise some eyebrows among fans, particularly those still holding out hope that Maguire and Garfield will turn up. By the time filming began, the cast had to have been secured, but even then, Watts and his team were flying by the seat of their pants. Spider-Man: No Way Home has the potential to be the biggest Spidey movie yet, and fans can decide for themselves next month if the hasty rewrites paid off in the end. Fingers crossed that they do.