Spider-Man: No Way Home casting rumors are out of control

People obsessed with an upcoming Marvel movie aren’t particularly new – by the time you finish reading this there will likely be a dozen new YouTube uploads analyzing the coffee brand that is featured in a trailer for a single picture appears – but the hype is over Spider-Man: No way home seems to be a bit more intense. Especially how Spider-Men talk about it.

Earlier this week, star Tom gave Holland an interview with Total Film this emphasized that the new film would turn out surprisingly dark.

“What is really going to surprise people is that this film is not fun,” said Holland. “It’s dark and it’s sad and it’s really going to affect you.”

This is a curious way of selling a Spider-Man movie, especially since Holland’s version of the character was expressly a dose of much-needed lightness in the midst of a Marvel Cinematic Universe that, despite constant jokes, is often deadly serious. But there is a sense in it: No way home

is positioned as the end of a trilogy, and regardless of the plans for Spidey after that, the endings are a bit sad.

Meanwhile, a Gizmodo blog post went viral after surfacing a quote from former Spider-Man Andrew Garfield: “Money is the thing that has corrupted us all and led to the terrible ecological collapse under which we will all die.” read the headline. It was an excerpt from a profile in The Guardian, in which Garfield mostly speaks abstractly about his career – he will soon be starring in Lin-Manuel Mirandas Tick, tick …. boom on Netflix – but notes that his experience as Spider-Man broke him a little. (He also says he’s kidding about the ecological collapse thing.)

The third cinematic Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire, doesn’t really give interviews these days, but there are much from people on the internet who work very hard to convince you of this.

This is all pretty extreme, however No way home invites you to all this excitement about the latest MCU gimmick: The Multiverse, a well-known science fiction trope that claims the existence of endless parallel realities, each different in big and small ways. In practice, this allows Marvel Studios to potentially tell stand-alone stories removed from their decades-long ongoing narrative, and wave away the impact of one movie or show on another by realizing that they are in an alternate universe. That hasn’t happened yet, but it could – and since the animated film in 2018 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

also featured a range of spider-men from different universes (not to mention the No way home Trailer with a villain from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films), fans have the feeling that anything is possible.

Photo: Sony Pictures Animation

The current state of Spider-Man is, frankly, more than weird, a funhouse mirror distortion of the character that everyone pays lip service to all the time, but in reality, none of that is. In the MCU era, Peter Parker went from the average kid who idolized superheroes to a man with multi-million dollar AI killsuits and the keys to a high-tech superweapon in just two movies. During this trilogy, Parker quickly shifted from an avatar of aspiring fandom (maybe you’re lucky, but if you’re responsible and never give up, being extraordinary) – to fandom as a corporate exercise (come and see all your toys) rolled into one Movie).

In all of this, Andrew Garfield has become perhaps the most valuable voice in the whole scenario. articulate again and again the conflict between what a character means to adored fans (what he is memorable issued at a congress shortly after its occupation in 2011) and what they mean to the corporations that own them – and how that ultimately stifles art and meaning.

Because contrary to what the No way home Hype would make you believe anything is not possible. Big franchise movies are ruled by contracts and lawyers and corporate executives whose trademarks need to be protected, in addition to the actual people who aren’t just corporate dummies ready to put on a suit (or digitally edit their face into one in the blink of an eye) allow). a hat. Whatever happens in No way homeEven if it’s great – and it could very well be – it will be the result of careful negotiation between dozens of interested parties, each more connected than usual thanks to the uniquely interconnected nature of the film universe. And the more power and profitability these interested parties gain, the more risk averse – and therefore less human – they tend to become.

In other words, the multiverse is not as big as you might think. But it can be big enough for Peter Parker to get lost.