FILM · 2021 · USA
Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Directed by
- Jon Watts
- Runtime
- 148 min
- Studio
- Marvel Studios, Pascal Pictures, Columbia Pictures
34 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
Peter Parker is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a super-hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.
Summary: TMDB
All facts (34)
- #001
While Spider-Man: Homecoming was in production in 2017, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures were planning two sequels to the film.
- #002
Tom Holland said in June 2017 that each of the planned sequels would follow Peter Parker / Spider-Man in a different high school year, with the third set in his senior year.
- #003
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige stated in July 2019 that the third film would tell "a Peter Parker story that has never been done before on film," a direction he tied to the ending of Spider-Man: Far From Home.
- #004
Contains a major spoiler — show
According to Kevin Feige, the ending of Spider-Man: Far From Home publicly reveals that Peter is Spider-Man, which shaped the approach to the third film.
- #005
Tom Holland was contracted to return for one more Spider-Man film, while Jon Watts had completed his two-film deal and would need to sign on for any further films.
- #006
By the time Sony announced it would proceed without Marvel's involvement, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers were writing the screenplay for the third Spider-Man film, after having done so for Far From Home.
- #007
After continued fan reaction at Disney's D23 convention and at the urging of Tom Holland, who personally spoke to Disney CEO Bob Iger and Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman Tom Rothman, Sony and Disney returned to negotiations.
- #008
Tom Rothman described the new deal as a "win-win-win" for Sony, Disney and the fans. He said the initial reports on the negotiations did not necessarily match the actual discussions and that the final deal would have happened without the reports and fan discourse.
- #009
By December 2019, writers McKenna and Sommers were working on the script for Spider-Man: No Way Home in earnest. They considered Kraven the Hunter as the main antagonist, an idea Jon Watts had pitched to Tom Holland, but it was dropped because Sony wanted to introduce the character in a solo film first.
- #010
The plot of Spider-Man: No Way Home moved toward an idea similar to It's a Wonderful Life, with Peter making a wish about his public identity. That concept brought Doctor Strange into the story and led McKenna and Sommers to explore the multiverse and the possibility of revisiting characters from earlier Spider-Man films.
- #011
McKenna and Sommers initially thought revisiting past Spider-Man characters would only be a tease for fans, but they decided to fully integrate them into the plot of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Sommers said that once the decision was made, they had to commit and do what was right for the story.
- #012
Contains a major spoiler — show
Early drafts of Spider-Man: No Way Home included every major character from past Spider-Man films, but McKenna and Sommers narrowed the roster because they felt they had taken on too much. Norman Osborn / Green Goblin was not the main villain in the first version of the script, but after the film lost other characters, the writers concluded he had to be the main villain and rewrote the script to give him a darker second chance at his Spider-Man (2002) actions.
- #013
By the end of 2019, filming on Spider-Man: No Way Home was expected to begin in mid-2020, and by March 2020 writers McKenna and Sommers were still working on the first draft of the script.
- #014
Sony moved Spider-Man: No Way Home's release to November 5, 2021 in April 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and shifted it again to December 17, 2021 the following month.
- #015
Because release date changes meant Spider-Man: No Way Home would arrive before Multiverse of Madness, parts of its plot were rewritten, including Doctor Strange no longer having firsthand knowledge of the multiverse; McKenna said this made the story more frightening because it dealt with the fear of the unknown.
- #016
Charlie Cox was contacted by Feige about reprising his Matt Murdock / Daredevil role in Marvel Studios projects, beginning with Spider-Man: No Way Home and the Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022); McKenna and Sommers considered giving Murdock a bigger part but decided against it so the film would stay focused on Peter.
- #017
Second unit filming for Spider-Man: No Way Home took place from October 14 to 16, 2020, in New York City under the working title Serenity Now, capturing visual effects plates and establishing shots.
- #018
Spider-Man: No Way Home filmed in the Queens neighborhoods of Astoria, Sunnyside and Long Island City.
- #019
Mauro Fiore took over as cinematographer on Spider-Man: No Way Home from Seamus McGarvey, who left the production after contracting COVID-19 and also had a scheduling conflict with Cyrano following the pandemic-caused delay of the Spider-Man film's planned July 2020 start.
- #020
While shooting Spider-Man: No Way Home at Trilith Studios in Atlanta, the production used strict COVID-19 safety measures on the soundstages, reportedly including technology that scanned actors into a visual effects system for applying make-up and costumes in post-production, and a light system signalling when cast could remove masks for filming.
- #021
Benedict Cumberbatch began filming his Spider-Man: No Way Home scenes in Atlanta by late November, before starting work on Multiverse of Madness, which began shooting that month in London; the Spider-Man production ran seven-to-eight weeks under the working titles Serenity Now and The November Project before a break during the 2020 Christmas season.
- #022
By December 2020, Alfred Molina was set to reprise his role as Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus from Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (2004) in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
- #023
Tobey Maguire was set to reprise his Peter Parker / Spider-Man from Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, and Andrew Garfield was returning as his version of the character from Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man films.
- #024
A cameo of Maguire and Garfield alongside Holland as their respective Spider-Men had been considered for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) but was cut because Sony felt at that moment it would be too risky and confusing.
- #025
Around Christmas 2020, writers McKenna and Sommers rewrote the introductions of Maguire and Garfield and much of the third act in time for those actors to begin filming.
- #026
The title Spider-Man: No Way Home was revealed in February 2021, continuing the naming convention of the previous two films by including "home" in the title.
- #027
Tom Holland said Spider-Man: No Way Home featured more "visceral" fight sequences and more hand-to-hand combat than the previous two films, and filming wrapped on March 26, 2021.
- #028
Alfred Molina confirmed in April 2021 that he was appearing in Spider-Man: No Way Home, saying he had been told not to discuss his role during production but had realized his appearance was already widely rumored and reported.
- #029
J. B. Smoove revealed later in April 2021 that he was returning as Julius Dell in Spider-Man: No Way Home, a role he had played in Far From Home.
- #030
Angourie Rice was revealed in early May 2021 to be reprising her role as Betty Brant in Spider-Man: No Way Home, a character she had played in earlier MCU media.
- #031
Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group President Sanford Panitch said in May 2021 that fans had shown confusion and frustration over how the SSU and the MCU relate, but that a plan existed to make this clearer, and he expected the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home to reveal more of that plan.
- #032
Vary suggested that the multiverse elements apparently introduced in Spider-Man: No Way Home could be the means by which Tom Holland appears in both the MCU and the SSU.
- #033
The official trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home confirmed that Jon Favreau returns as Harold "Happy" Hogan, Benedict Wong returns as Wong, and J. K. Simmons returns as J. Jonah Jameson from Far From Home, with Simmons having played a different version of that character in the Raimi trilogy.
- #034
The official trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home confirmed that Electro and Green Goblin appear in the film, implying that this Green Goblin is Willem Dafoe's version from the Raimi films.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- Wikipedia Spider-Man: No Way Home — Wikipedia
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