Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third installment in the MCU’s Spider-Man movies starring Tom Holland, is set to release later this year. After a period where it looked like Sony and Disney might have ended their ongoing collaboration, everyone’s favorite web-slinger will be returning in what’s set to be the most ambitious movie in the series yet.
Even though a lot of information about the project has seemingly been leaked, there’s still much about Spider-Man: No Way Home that we don’t yet know. Below, we'll explain what we know so far about the movie, including its cast, release date and story. We'll also let you know what we'd like to see in the film.
Expect plenty of spoilers for Spider-Man Far From Home and WandaVision below, if you haven't seen those yet. If you aren’t yet caught up on the most recent MCU offerings, read on at your own risk.
- Check out our Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales review
- How to watch the Marvel movies in order
Casting rumors for Spider-Man: No Way Home may finally have some official confirmation. Alfred Molina announced his return as Doc Ock in an interview and new reports suggest Tobey Maguire could make an appearance after all.
Spider-Man: No Way Home release date
Spider-Man: No Way Home will release on December 17, 2021, assuming there are no production delays and theaters are open then. It will be the last release in what’s set to be a jam-packed year for MCU films, with Black Widow, The Eternals, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings all scheduled to hit screens before it. Of course, that's assuming the world of cinema isn't hit by further Covid-related delays – which is hard to predict right now.
Spider-Man: No Way Home cast details and rumors
Right now, we only know a few details about the film’s casting for certain. Tom Holland will return as Peter Parker, Jacob Batalon will return as Peter's friend Ned, and Zendaya will return as MJ – all three were seen in the first stills for No Way Home (see above). You'll see Marisa Tomei play Aunt May again, too.
In addition, Tony Revolori is expected to reprise his role as Flash Thompson.
Other than that, we're in rumor and leaks territory. Numerous characters from across the MCU and previous Spider-Man projects are set to make a comeback, which is why anticipation for Spider-Man: No Way Home is so high.
A report has suggested Benedict Cumberbatch will reprise his role as Doctor Strange in the upcoming film – and at Disney's Investor Day in 2020, Marvel's Kevin Feige confirmed the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will tie in to the third Spider-Man movie.
We also know that Jamie Foxx will be returning as the villain Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in Spider-Man: No Way Home, thanks to a since-deleted Instagram post. The Hollywood Reporter says that Alfred Molina will also return as a version of the villain Otto Octavius (who he played in Spider-Man 2). Later, in an interview with Variety, Molina called his involvement "the worst kept secret in Hollywood."
How will these villains end up in Peter Parker's reality? Or vice versa? That's the big mystery we're waiting to unpack.
Casting rumors go beyond old Spider-Man villains though, with one Collider report suggesting that past Spider-Man actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield will play some part in this film, indicating some kind of multiversal team-up – Spider-Verse in live-action, perhaps. These claims have since been debunked by Tom Holland, but more recent reports might mean Tobey Maguire will make an appearance after all.
Finally, for now, we've seen rumors that Charlie Cox will be reprising his role as Daredevil from the eponymous Netflix series. The original reporting from Murphy’s Multiverse has since been corroborated by comicbook.com, which said he was apparently seen on the set of the film. We'll have to wait and see with that one, though a February 2021 casting call did suggest a courtroom scene was being filmed.
It's unclear what the canonical status of the Daredevil TV show is at this point, though we wouldn't be against seeing parts of the series salvaged for the MCU.
Spider-Man : No Way Home story details (and rumors)
There is no official plot synopsis for Spider-Man: No Way Home right now, so everything below is an educated guess based on pre-existing information.
The third Spider-Man movie will almost certainly deal with the repercussions of Spider-Man: Far From Home’s ending, where Spidey was basically accused of being a drone-controlling terrorist by Mysterio, and J. Jonah Jameson made an appearance to reveal the superhero's secret identity as Peter Parker. Right now, we can only speculate as to how this will play out on-screen, but the effect on Peter's life is likely to be central to the plot in this film.
After Peter revealed his identity in Marvel Comics' Civil War series, powerful magic was used to make everyone forget – so speculation is rife that Doctor Strange could do something similar to help him out of his public identity predicament in the MCU. We'll have to wait and see on that one, though, but it has at least been confirmed that there's a connection between No Way Home and the second Doctor Strange movie.
In addition, the rumor of numerous Spidey villains entering the picture possibly sets the film up for a Sinister Six scenario – basically a team-up of foes to give Peter an extra-hard time. If we assume Electro and Doc Ock make the cut, Adrian Toomes' Vulture would make a lot of sense, and so too would Mysterio if he managed to fake his death and survive Far From Home. That's four – the Scorpion, aka Mac Gargan (played by Michael Mando), already exists in the MCU, too, minus his alter ego. That's five.
We've seen Michael Keaton show up in the trailer for Morbius, the non-MCU Spider-Man spin-off movie – could Jared Leto's character be the sixth? Or could it be someone else? Again, this is all just speculation, but a team-up of villains feels plausible to us, based on what we've heard about the casting so far. Sony has also been trying to get the Sinister Six on the big screen for a long time, with Drew Goddard once signed up to direct a movie focused on the characters.
Meanwhile, the title 'No Way Home' likely refers to Peter having to live life on the move, unable to keep his friends or family safe now that his identity is revealed.
What do we want to see from Spider-Man: No Way Home?
Here's our wish list for the third Spider-Man MCU movie.
Balancing the villains
If you’ve read through our breakdown of everything we know and everything that’s been leaked about Spider-Man: No Way Home, you might be getting flashbacks. The Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man 3 from 2007 was known for including a similarly packed cast of characters, particularly on the villain side, much to the dislike of fans and critics. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 suffered from the same problem years later.
We hope that this Spider-Man film will have learned from those past mistakes, and manage to incorporate its multiple foes without losing the thread of the story.
Spider-Verse tie-ins
Into the Spider-Verse is one of the best superhero films ever made, and it rightfully won an Oscar for Best Animated Movie in 2019. It seems likely that Sony will want to put its various Spider-Men in that animated universe at some point, and it would be cool if No Way Home could connect the dots in a post-credits sequence. Imagine No Way Home ended with an animated Tom Holland teaming up with Miles Morales...
Daredevil joins the MCU again
Marvel Studios has two choices with Daredevil: keep Charlie Cox's Netflix version of the character, or wait a while and recast him. Our preference is they keep Cox – the movie doesn't need to explore his baggage from the Netflix show, but just having him in the MCU would be a nice love letter to fans of that series.
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