Spider-Man: No Way Home brings back a lot of big names from the franchise's past, though there were some noteworthy omissions. For starters, both Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Watson and Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy didn't appear despite rumours to the contrary; that disappointed a lot of fans, but there were versions of the movie with...well, pretty much everyone in it.
"Let’s write the script that is the kitchen sink and we’ll just act like we were going to get everything we wish for," co-writer Chris McKenna recently told Variety. "And like Peter’s wish, it became a nightmare, and it required very, very talented people to help us not die at the end."
"We went down different roads with different characters that just didn’t fit," he continued. "We can’t get into the details of that because it might be the kind of thing where they’ll find a way to explore those ideas. So I’d hate to spoil anything, because I think we had a lot of fun."
Co-writer Erik Sommers agrees, adding: "The first draft, we bit off more than we could chew."
It sure would be fun to read those earlier drafts, but having seen Spider-Man: No Way Home, it feels like the writers probably made the right decision. Elsewhere in the interview, they confirmed that Jon Watts directed Venom: Let There Be Carnage's mid-credits scene and the one we saw at the end of this movie. The writers also admitted that Eddie Brock being in the final battle was "definitely discussed."
As for that apparent plot hole regarding how Venom was pulled into the MCU alongside those who know Peter Parker is Spider-Man (there is no Spidey on his world), McKenna has an explanation for curious fans. "The idea is that the symbiote has knowledge of other universes," he reveals. "Buried in his brain is some knowledge of that connection."
Putting Venom and Spider-Man in the same world but not having them meet seems baffling on the surface, but it appears the reason for that was to bring the symbiote into the MCU. How the alien reaches New York City from Mexico remains to be seen, though it's hard to believe the tease would have been included if it's going nowhere. Then again, we still haven't seen Scorpion after Spider-Man: Homecoming!