One Spider-Man: No Way Home Scene Was Changed Thanks To Reddit

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" is exactly the kind of movie Marvel Studios should be making. An event film that brought swathes of both fans and the general public into the multiplex is precisely what the company needs following its protracted struggles, which have seen the Marvel Cinematic Universe go from the biggest blockbuster franchise in the world to a flailing property that can't quite seem to recapture the attention it once commanded. When 2024's "Deadpool & Wolverine" obliterated the box office, it seemed the MCU still had some life left in it. But several middling theatrical releases and yet more dull Disney+ streaming series later, and the future of the franchise has once again been thrown into question.

2021's "Spider-Man: No Way Home," however, represented everything Marvel Studios should be doing now. The film brought back a slew of fan-favorite characters from movies and TV shows past, including Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborne/Green Goblin and Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock/Daredevil. More importantly, it brought back Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker/Spider-Men, producing so much buzz prior to the film's release that its box office domination was never in doubt. Of course, it helped that fans weren't quite sure these two beloved web-slingers were actually appearing in the movie. After leaked footage seemed to confirm Garfield's return, Marvel and Garfield played it off as fake, denying his return in "No Way Home." As such, fans were forced to turn out just to know for sure whether he and Maguire were back on the big screen, making for gargantuan box office profits that saw "No Way Home" bring in close to $2 billion worldwide. Everybody who watched the film now has a memory of being in the theater when Garfield and Maguire stepped through their respective portals into Ned Leeds' (Jacob Batalon) apartment to effusive cheers from the audience.

It couldn't have been a more perfectly planned and executed moment for the movie and the MCU as a whole. While audience capture is rarely a good thing for creativity, in this case pandering to audience expectations resulted in one of the most entertaining and successful installments in a franchise. But it seems this particular moment wasn't just about pandering to fans by bringing back two esteemed Marvel vets. In fact, a big part of making this crucial moment work came from director Jon Watts' desire to go against fan expectations. 

Speaking at the 2025 Mediterrane Film Festival (as covered by Collider), Jon Watts recounted how a particular piece of fan art managed to change his original vision for the scene in "Spider-Man: No Way Home" where Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire's Spider-Men enter the MCU's Sacred Timeline (i.e. the reality that Tom Holland's web-slinger calls home). Watts recalled how, during production, rumors were swirling that Maguire and Garfield were going to be in the film. "We were writing the script," he explained, "and we were working on where we wanted to reveal the guys, and it always seemed like Peter's going to be sad because Aunt May [played by Marisa Tomei] has just died, and that the portals are going to open, and the two Spider-Men are going to step out." The director added that he'd envisioned this moment happening on "a rooftop somewhere" in a "hazy" environment which would've kept audiences guessing as to who was going to emerge from said haze.

"Then I was on Reddit," he continued, "and I was looking at people who had already made fan art of, 'This is probably what it's going to be like when the two Spider-Men get revealed.'" As the director explained, he came across fan art that basically depicted his own vision for how to introduce Garfield and Maguire. "It was on a rooftop. It was sad, two Doctor Strange portals were open, and two Spider-Men are stepping out. I was like, 'Well, we can't do that. If that's exactly what everyone thinks we're going to do, we absolutely can't do that.'"

The director then started to think about what he could do that would come as a real surprise to audiences. "I was like, 'Probably having the two Spider-Men appear at Ned's Filipino grandma's house in Queens,'" Watts explained. "I don't think anyone was doing fan art of that on Reddit." He also liked how setting this big moment in a comparatively boring locale "made perfect sense in the story," due to the fact it was the first time viewers had been taken away from Holland's Peter Parker and his perspective on the events of the film. "We don't know what's happened to [Peter Parker]," he said. "We're with Ned, we're with [Zendaya as] MJ. They have to lay low. Where are they going to go? Ned's grandma's house. So, we built this whole scene around that."

It seems this dramatic switch-up wasn't exactly the easiest thing for Jon Watts and his crew to pull off. Key scenes from "Spider-Man: No Way Home" had already been changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused several problems for the production. So, changing Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's arrival scene so dramatically simply added more strife to a production already beleaguered by pandemic-era restrictions.

Specifically, the actor playing Ned's grandma in this scene was not actually an actor at all, with Watts and co. having to fly in a woman from Hawaii just to stand in for the scene. "It was the middle of the pandemic, so we had to find a lady and fly her from Hawaii to Atlanta to shoot all of this," he explained. "So, as soon as you put her in that scene and change the location, now I feel like I've double-crossed the audience in the best way, where they're seeing everything that they were hoping that they would see in a way that they were never expecting they were going to." Despite the logistical issues with changing this integral scene so significantly, it appears Watts enjoyed himself, telling audiences at the festival, "I love that approach to storytelling, where you trust that the audience is smart, and they can see the moves, and they know and understand the genre, and they're looking for you to surprise them." 

Let's hope Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios take that philosophy to heart moving forward. The company's struggles have been made all the more confusing by Feige saying all the right things. He's committed to lowering the output of MCU media, launched the "Marvel Spotlight" banner for more grounded, character-focused projects, and even acknowledged the proliferation of Disney+ series was hugely detrimental to the brand overall. Yet, we still seem to be getting underwhelming offerings from the company, most obviously with the safe, forgettable rehash that was 2025's "Captain America: Brave New World." Even the recently released "Ironheart" show, which was somewhat of a breath of fresh air, just projects the wrong message in that it suggests Feige and Marvel genuinely think lesser-known characters are the way to restore the saga to greatness. Soon, however, Tom Holland will return and hopefully restore the franchise's fortunes with "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," which takes its title from one of the most infamous Marvel Comics storylines ever.