Reimagining ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’

Now that enough time has passed, with the film available on streaming and the extended version being out in cinemas, I thought it would be an interesting time to circle back around to ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ (NWH). If you’re looking for a list of my opinions with all the positives and negatives of the film, this isn’t where you’ll find it but I do have a Twitter thread with all my takes, and so does T.

For most, their biggest issue with NWH was feeling that the film was too much fan service and not enough story and I agree, to an extent. I love a little fan service and was more than ready to have Willem Dafoe back as the Green Goblin (controversial take: best supervillain across all companies in live action), my main qualm is that it all feels very low stakes. The consequences of his identity being exposed were never really explored in depth. We see a little more in a deleted scene with a bike robber but the story definitely needed to show us more. The entire period between the end of summer reveal and the post-Halloween college rejection felt incredibly glossed over. So in honour of my forever unsolicited opinions, here is my “if I were Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers this is what I would have done differently in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’”.

Step one would be to split NWH into two films. Film one would have the same beginning and everything would essentially be the same, from the exposure of his identity and the chaos of him trying to get home. The story would still include the intervention of the DODC, the seizing of Stark industry assets, the calling into question of his family and friends, and Daredevil as Peter and Happy’s attorney. The school scenes, including the scenes that were included in the extended version, should have been leaned into to further emphasise the impact his identity being exposed had on his education (and so I could get more comedic moments from Martin Starr, JB Smoove and Hannibal Buress). The big bad of this film would instead be Kraven the Hunter, and we would get my dream ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’. Kraven the Hunter is a great Spider-Man villain and I think it would be interesting and fun to play around with the character. The public perception of hunting and poaching and things of that nature has significantly changed since the character’s first comic introduction in 1964 (well, I mean not to the wealthy elite), so it would be interesting to see what he would look like today and also avoid whatever weird angle Sony is currently taking with their Aaron Taylor Johnson Kraven film. 

Sidenote: though the character is Russian in the comics, I have always perceived Kraven the Hunter as a brown man and Jason Momoa was my dream casting for him before he was cast as Aquaman. As a result of this perception, I initially was very unimpressed by the casting but after careful consideration, I would much rather not have the violent animal-killing brute be played by a brown person. The Russian bad guy angle is also incredibly played out but what else could I expect from a character that was created and conceptualised during the Cold war.

Synopsis: Spider-Man: [Insert punny “Home” title that I tried and failed to come up with] 

Fallen from grace in this new age of widespread animal activism and the growth of veganism, the once famous TV hunter Kraven searches for his next great hunt. With Growing distrust and discourse fueled by J Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle surrounding Spider-Man, Kraven sets his eyes on Spider-Man as his target for ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’. 

There would be big action set pieces of Kraven and Spider-Man akin to his appearances in the comics and cartoons. In Kraven’s desperation, he sets his eyes on May, putting her safety in jeopardy and giving the audience our first glimpse at a more violent Peter (foreshadowing May’s death and his violent turn in the following movie). Spider-Man would defeat Kraven in the end, possibly with assistance from Daredevil (I would prefer if he did it alone but if you are so desperate for a cameo fight then fine), but public opinion would still be against him. Post-fight the film would show his loved ones bearing the brunt of his identity being exposed with May having to go to a hearing for child negligence/endangerment and the FOS (friends of Spider-Man) getting rejected from MIT. These events would culminate in a desperate Peter who is tired of seeing his loved ones suffer and who feels like he is out of options turning to Doctor Strange for help.

The follow up movie would follow the same pattern as NWH starting from the failed spell, but it would include more build-up of the capturing of the villains. Instead of having Doctor Strange catch Lizard, we would have another Peter and FOS capturing segment as I think a little more hijinks and chaos at the beginning of the film would help to nail the gravity of May’s death and the actions of The Goblin at the end of the movie.

Synopsis: Spider-Man: No Way Home

When the exposure of Peter’s superhero identity begins to bleed into the life of his family and friends and their futures end up in the crossfire, Peter seeks help from the Master of the Mystic Arts. When Peter asks for help from Doctor Strange, the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man. (… and yes, that final sentence was definitely stolen word for word from the original synopsis).

The thing that I would keep the same would be the depth of the contribution of Peter 2 (Tobey Maguire) and Peter 3 (Andrew Garfield). I’m sure many people would disagree with me, but I feel that more of the previous spideys would detract from Peter’s arc. One of the greatest criticisms audiences have returned to upon review is that Tobey never gets to interact with Dafoe despite him being his villain but I think it works because by the time we get to the final battle, The Goblin is very much Peter 1’s (Tom Holland) villain and making him riff with Peter 2 feels unnecessary. Peter 2 saving The Goblin and in turn Peter 1 from making the wrong decision is more than enough interaction between them. My main change would be the memory wipe ending. The whole notion that Peter had to change the spell to stop the villains from coming felt nonsensical as there was never any real reason why it wouldn’t work; it was purely to push the story to their desired ending. I would propose that everyone forgets he is Spider-Man instead of forgetting him in totality and we still get our street level Spider-Man, that way if the story continues the writers won’t have to dig themselves out of this ridiculous memory loss plot.

These are the main things I think would change if everyone forgot he was spidey:

• He’s still without family due to May’s death and he can still live alone in that rundown flat we saw at the end as he won’t be able to afford her old flat 
• Happy says he knew May through Spider-Man in the original ending so if everyone forgets he’s Spider-Man we never get Happy and May dating and he doesn’t have access to his money either
• He stays in New York, forgoing MIT and choosing to distance himself from Ned and Michelle for their safety
• We can either explore Empire State University (ESU) comic Spider-Man with Peter struggling between studying and being Spider-Man, or Daily Bugle Spider-Man with Peter having to take money from the person who hates him the most.

So, that’s everything I would do to make this story work without a memory loss plotline that still gets us to the same end goal of street level Spidey while playing up the stakes of his identity reveal and allowing a story where we see Peter become more violent ahead of his big violent turn in No Way Home and learning a lesson on forgiveness.

-Thea