The writer and director of No Way Home, Adam Pugh, has said that the film would have been “too long” if they kept all of the scenes. They had to cut a lot in order to reach their goal on time.
It’s been a week since Spider-Man: No Way Home hit cinemas, and fans are still talking about the film’s mind-bending approach to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movie is chock-full of unexpected twists and long-awaited Spider-Man revelations, but the film’s co-writers claim that much more was removed from the final edit. The approach to managing the film’s ever-growing ensemble — while still keeping the trip centered on Peter Parker / Spider-Man (Tom Holland) — was a unique challenge, as co-writer Erik Sommers highlighted in a recent interview with DiscussingFilm.
“At the end of the day, it’s a Spider-Man movie,” Sommers noted. “You have to be telling the tale of Peter Parker, and everything has to be in service of that.” “So there were a lot of difficult judgments made, like, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fantastic if these two villains could do this!” and “Oh, wouldn’t it be amazing if these two villains could do this!” However, it must serve Peter’s trip, and you must keep things going. There were a lot of ‘little darlings,’ as we call them — small moments and things that you absolutely like – but you have to let them go occasionally.”
“It’s a balancing act,” Sommers added, “because we adore those prior movies, the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb ones, and we want to pay tribute to them while still making the fans happy.” “However, you don’t want to give sloppy fan service for the sake of it since it will eventually come back to bite you. It’s a balancing act, and you have to be thinking about the tale at all times. So, if you truly want to hear this villain speak the phrase he said in the previous movie, you can’t let it drive you to locate a suitable opportunity. If you simply go seeking for it and spend all your time doing so, you’ll wind yourself creating a scene that doesn’t necessarily need to be in the film. All you have to do now is stay focused on delivering Peter Parker’s tale and hope that possibilities for such moments arise. We were working with a lot of brilliant and creative individuals, and we were just going over these moments over and over again, constructing things and trying to find those times when we could integrate that type of material in an organic manner. We weren’t simply doing it for the sake of doing it.”
For the first time in Spider-cinematic Man’s history, our friendly neighborhood hero is unmasked and no longer able to separate his daily existence from the high-stakes of being a Super Hero in Spider-Man: No Way Home. When he seeks Doctor Strange’s assistance, the stakes become even higher, pushing him to realize what it actually means to be Spider-Man. Zendaya will play MJ, Jacob Batalon will play Ned Leeds, Marisa Tomei will play Aunt May, J.B. Smoove will play Julius Dell, Tony Revolori will play Flash Thompson, Angourie Rice will play Betty Brant, and Hannibal Buress will play Coach Wilson in the film. Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and Jamie Foxx will return in their roles as Spider-Man from earlier films.
In cinemas now is Spider-Man: No Way Home.