A little leak goes a long way.
Following the breached unauthorized release of a mostly-finished trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home, Sony and Marvel Entertainment decided to release the full, final version complete with visual effects.
The drop, occurring on a Monday night, comes more by compulsion than by plan, triggered by the leak and likely pre-empting Marvel’s plan to pair it with the release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings over Labor Day weekend.
Well it’s here now — after much anticipation and gnashing of tweets — and it reveals exactly what we already know: that Spider-Man and Doctor Strange open up the multiverse.
It’s not by intent, as the trailer shows, but rather the result of a request by Peter Parker that Doctor Strange (surprisingly) grants, one that leads to unintended consequences. (I have to say, the fact that Strange grants Parker’s wish is, well, very strange given how ethically dubious it is. I hope the movie validates the reasoning more than is seen here. Perhaps Strange isn’t really himself…)
The return of Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus from the Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man 2 is also confirmed with his appearance as the trailer’s kicker. It also tease the Green Goblin of Raimi’s trilogy, played by Willem Dafoe.
Who isn’t shown is Tobey Maguire‘s Spider-Man or Andrew Garfield‘s. Assuming the reports of their involvement are true (despite Garfield’s public denials), we’ll likely see them whenever the next trailer hits, most likely coupled with Marvel’s Eternals on November 5.
Spider-Man: No Way Home — starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Benedict Cumberbatch, and directed by Jon Watts (helmer of the first two Holland Spider-Man films) — opens this holiday season on December 17, 2021, exclusively in theaters.
