‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Had To Be Rewritten After ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Delays

Since COVID began, we’ve seen the typically rock-solid Marvel Studios have to zig-zag quite a bit when it comes to scheduling—TV series releases were flip-flopped, films were delayed (and delayed…). And apparently, all this caused a bit of an issue for the Sony/Marvel Studios collaboration, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” leading to some serious rewriting.

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Speaking to GQ, Tom Holland talked about the process for filming “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” his third solo adventure as the Webslinger. And it appears the chaos surrounding Marvel Studios release dates forced filmmakers to write quite a bit of the new film. But the unsure nature of the story actually dated back to before production, as the film almost hit snags when it was trying to pull together all of those villains. 

For those unaware, as seen in the new trailer for the film, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” features Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) opening up the multiverse, leading to Spidey villains from previous Sony iterations of the character invading the MCU. Folks like Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, and Willem Dafoe are already confirmed with other folks like Thomas Haden Church, Rhys Ifans, and Jake Gyllenhaal heavily rumored. And apparently, trying to nab all those names wasn’t as easy as you might think.

“Some people were trying to figure out whether they wanted to do it, and we needed all of them or none,” Holland said about landing all of those actors. 

Of course, we know that most (if not all) signed on the dotted line and are going to appear in the film. But then COVID hit and forced a complete change to the plot of the film. Previously, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was scheduled to arrive before ‘No Way Home.’ However, when Marvel Studios delayed the film to 2022, that forced the ‘Spider-Man’ filmmakers to scramble to rewrite the script to account for this change. (It should be noted that Sony controls the release date of ‘No Way Home’ and Marvel Studios/Disney controls ‘Doctor Strange 2,’ leading to this mess.)

READ MORE: Tom Holland Swears Tobey Maguire & Andrew Garfield Aren’t In ‘No Way Home’ But Also Says It’s “Three Generations Coming Together”

“You could ask the director, ‘What happens in act three?’ And his response would be, ‘I’m still trying to figure it out,’” Holland explained about how the film’s rewrite continued well into production of the film.

Interestingly, one of the biggest changes to the film happened in the aforementioned third act, where Tom Holland himself stood up and decided that a scene had to get rewritten because it didn’t really feel right.

“I kept stopping and being like, ‘I’m so sorry, I just don’t believe what I’m saying,’” explained Holland. “[Director Jon Watts and I] sat down, we went through it, and we came up with a new idea. Then we pitched it to the writers, they rewrote it, and it works great.”

Obviously, we’re not privy to the details about what was changed, as ‘No Way Home’ is steeped in mystery. So, we’ll just have to wait and see how all of these changes affected the finished product, which hits theaters on December 17.