By now, it's no longer a secret that Spider-Man: No Way Home features the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker Variants. However, perfecting the scene where they meet the MCU's Spider-Man for the first time proved to be no easy task for writers Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna. In fact, it demanded multiple rewrites.
Confirming to IGN that it took them "at least ten times" to get it right, Sommers said the biggest challenge was figuring out what sort of mindset Maguire and Garfield's Spideys would be in by this point in their lives. "When [the Spider-Men] got pulled into this movie, what condition were they in? What were they doing? What was their mindset?"
"The end of the last Amazing Spider-Man had this really nice speech from Gwen about staying hopeful and everything," he continued. "And immediately it became interesting to us. Well, what if Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man, if his Peter Parker couldn't do it, he couldn't keep that hope. He was too hurt by what happened. And so, that led us to the attitude that we found for him."
We also had to think long and hard about where Tobey's Spider-Man would be in," Sommers added. "And that was a more difficult question 'cause more time has gone by."
According to McKenna, everyone understandably had an opinion on how the returning characters should be portrayed, including the actors, director Jon Watts, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, and producer Amy Pascal. "It took a lot of work by everyone - Kevin, Jon, Amy, all of us - to really just work out all that. And then we brought in the actors and they then had all their own ideas. Making a movie like this is a big collaborative experience."
This and every other scene with the three Spider-Men in Spider-Man: No Way Home worked amazingly well, and the pep talk from Peter's fellow wall-crawlers helped set him back on the right track. The hope among fans is that Maguire and Garfield will get to reprise these roles again, though if this was all we get, then we'd argue Sommers, McKenna, and everyone else involve absolutely nailed it.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is still playing in theaters (there's still no Digital/Blu-ray release date).