“Spider-Man: No Way Home” will release in theatres next week and will be the ninth theatrical film featuring the iconic character. “No Way Home” will also be the third movie starring Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
From his debut in "Amazing Fantasy, no. 15" in 1962, Spider-Man has become one of the most popular superheroes in the past 100 years. The story stars Peter Parker, a teenager bitten by a radioactive spider which gives him the powers of a spider.
The spider bite gives him the superpowers of a spider who chooses to fight crime after his uncle is killed. Spider-Man was created by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, with Lee intending for Spider-Man to be a relatable character when he is not a superhero, but Peter Parker.
Peter Parker is an intelligent but unpopular high school student. He deals with all sorts of academic, money, and relationship problems because of his role as Spider-Man. Spider-Man still chooses to fight crime because as the saying goes, “with great power, comes great responsibility.”
The first theatrical movie release for the character, "Spider-Man" was released in 2002, starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborne/The Green Goblin.
In 2012, five years after Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man trilogy concluded, Sony Pictures introduced a new series of Spider-Man movies. "The Amazing Spider-Man" movies starred Andrew Garfield as the iconic character.
This version of Peter Parker differed from the previous, with Parker wanting to discover who his parents were and where they went, something not often discussed in Spider-Man media. These movies were not as well-received as the Raimi films.
The poor reception of these movies led to Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios making a deal, allowing Spider-Man to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside characters from The Avengers movie series.
This new version of Spider-Man played by Tom Holland debuted in “Captain America: Civil War” and had solo movies “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Spider-Man: Far from Home.” “Far From Home” was the most financially successful of every Spider-Man movie, making over one billion dollars at the box office worldwide, the most of any Spider-Man movie up to that point.
Live-action films are not the only way to make a movie, however. An animated Spider-Man movie known as “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” was released in 2018. This movie featured Miles Morales, voiced by Shameik Moore learning how to be Spider-Man after Peter Parker, voiced by Chris Pine was killed by the evil villain Wilson Fisk/Kingpin voiced by Liev Schreiber.
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is a movie about several different versions of Spider-Man uniting to defeat Wilson Fisk. “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” won an Oscar in 2018 for the best-animated film and has a sequel set to release in 2022.
Every Spider-Man fan has their favorite version of the character. There have been dreams of all three live-action versions of the iconic character teaming up. This dream may finally come true in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” as there have been rumors and plot leaks speculating that Garfield and Maguire may reprise their roles as Spider-Man.
The evidence that this may happen gained serious ground when the first trailer for the movie saw Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus. Molina will reprise his villainous role, first appearing in “Spider-Man 2,” which starred Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man in 2004.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” will star Tom Holland, as Spider-Man/Peter Parker, Zendaya as Michelle Jones, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, J.B. Smoove as Mr. Dell, and Tony Revolori as Flash Thompson.