Spider-Man: No Way Home will pit Peter Parker against a whole squad of supervillains, which could make it tricky for the film to avoid a similar problem with Sam Raimi’s original trilogy. Going off of the trailer footage and a number of rumors surrounding the movie, No Way Home will feature a slew of bad guys for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man to face, including Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, and Jamie Foxx’s Electro. But could the inclusion of so many villains actually wind up being a bad idea?
Even before its official title was announced, Spider-Man: No Way Home was already one of the most anticipated films in the entire MCU. Early rumors (that have since been confirmed) that No Way Home would include characters from the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man film franchises started a wave of excitement among fans, and that excitement has only grown in the months since. If the final film hits on all cylinders, it could end up being one of the best superhero movies to date.
However, before Spider-Man: No Way Home can claim that title, it must first overcome a major problem that ultimately doomed Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy: too many villains. Spider-Man 3 was a critical failure for a lot of reasons, but one of the most commonly cited issues with the movie is its overcrowded ensemble of bad guys. Here’s how Far from Home can avoid that same problem while still keeping all of its villains.
Like many of the entries in Marve's MCU Phase 4, Spider-Man: No Way Home is a multiverse story. In the trailer, Peter goes to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to ask for some magical help in wiping everyone’s knowledge of his secret identity, which was revealed publicly at the end of Spider-Man: Far from Home. Strange agrees, but the spell goes awry, sparking a chaotic shockwave through reality itself. The details of what happens have yet to be fully revealed, but it seems that the spell’s backfiring merged different timelines in the multiverse together, possibly centering around Spider-Man himself.
That’s the best explanation for how past villains like Doc Ock and Green Goblin make their way into the MCU, and if the rumors prove true, it will bring in Maguire and Garfield’s versions of Spider-Man, as well. The result looks like a storyline similar to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which is an exciting opportunity for both nostalgic reprisals and fun new stories. Bringing in multiple villains isn’t necessary to make that structure work, but it would be a big missed opportunity if Marvel didn’t do it. The best parts of Phase 4 so far have been when the MCU has embraced the wild possibilities of multiverses, magic, and other more outlandish plot devices. Plus, with Spider-Man now being one of the most popular MCU subseries, it makes sense for Holland’s third solo outing to go even bigger and more bombastic than Spider-Man: Far from Home and Spider-Man: Homecoming.
While Spider-Man: No Way Home’s cadre of villains presents a number of exciting narrative possibilities, it also conjures less positive memories of Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 – a film that failed in part because it had too many bad guys looking to fight Peter Parker. There were certainly other problems with Maguire’s third Spider-Man movie, including Peter Parker’s heavily memed turn to the dark side and the bafflingly written love story at the center of the film. But there’s no denying that many of the problems with script of Spider-Man 3 might have been solved or at least partially mended by a more focused conflict.
Sandman, Venom and Green Goblin all play big roles in Spider-Man 3. They don’t just show up for the fights – they have developed arcs that are largely separate from each other. Sandman has whole scenes showing his family, his past, and his motivation for committing crimes. Green Goblin’s story revolves around Harry Osborn discovering Peter’s secret and enacting vengeance for his father’s death. And the Venom plotline is almost two different stories, one being Peter grappling with the allure of the symbiote’s power, and the other dealing with Eddie Brock’s hatred of Spider-Man. Simply put, it’s too much for any one movie to handle deftly, and it doesn’t help that all three villain arcs stay largely isolated from each other until the climax of the film. If even one of Spider-Man 3’s villains had been removed, the rest of the movie could have been completed in a much more focused and cohesive way.
So how can Spider-Man: No Way Home avoid falling into the same villain trap that killed Spider-Man 3? Fortunately, it looks like the new movie is already on the right path. Because so many of the villains are from previous Sony Spider-Man films, they won’t need much introduction or added motivation. Instead, characters like Electro and Green Goblin can be strictly bad guys, without needing to be overly involved in the rest of the story. That means less screen time for each individual villain, more focus on Peter and his personal arc, and a lot of fun action along the way.
Of course, the villains will still need some development, especially if the movie has any new faces who haven’t appeared in past releases. But even then, it shouldn’t be too hard to keep those arcs contained and minimal. Because most of the villains seem to enter the story as a result of Strange’s spell, they’ll all be tied together by a singular plot, unlike the villains in Spider-Man 3. No Way Home could therefore make its villains more of a unit, rather than a collection of unrelated characters. That fits with the rumors that the bad guys in No Way Home will form the Sinister Six, a famous team of villains from the Spidey comics. As a multiverse story, the movie needs to embrace the chaos of its large cast and many possibilities they bring. The key is to make sure that those villains don’t take too much time away from the actual protagonists and to keep them all united under the same overarching story. If Spider-Man: No Way Home can do that, it could be every bit as great as fans are hoping.
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