Most MCU-set movies come with their fair share of surprises, but Spider-Man: No Way Home is by far the most secretive entry in the franchise since Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures have done their utmost to keep spoilers from leaking (some were unavoidable, unfortunately), but it's now come to light that their job could have been a lot more difficult.
While chatting to Yahoo UK to promote the threequel, star Tom Holland revealed that the original plan was to keep the returning villains under wraps and focus on marketing the movie as more of a "civil war" between Peter Parker and Doctor Strange.
"Remember when that was the initial marketing plan? The initial plan was to make the film seem like a civil war between myself and Doctor Strange and they were gonna keep everything a secret. That is impossible."
"We're pretty tired of constantly lying and deceiving people. I feel like conscience is weighing on me now. It's tough," he added, before his costar Zendaya admitted that trying to keep the movie's secrets has been "exhausting."
There's a good chance Sony's marketing strategy needed to be altered once the trades got hold of the news that Jamie Foxx and Alfred Molina were set to reprise their respective roles as Electro and Doctor Octopus, and once the former posted about it on social media, there was no putting the cat back in the bag.
It would have been quite a feat in they managed to pull it off while also keeping the other secrets (you know the ones) from spilling, but would there really be as much hype surrounding No Way Home if fans weren't looking forward to seeing the likes of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin in action again?
Spider-Man: No Way Home hits theaters later this week.