Speaking just for myself, I’m fine with the plot being “Peter asks Strange to do something, Strange tries, but horrible side effects ensue, and then in a desperate attempt to fix that, the world ends up screwed up, setting things up for the future”. I just wish it had seemed more like “Peter asks Strange for help, Strange is conflicted but feels a duty to help a sad hero, and then despite reasonable precautions things go wrong” as opposed to “Peter asks Strange for help, and then Strange starts casting a huge reality-altering spell with about 8 seconds of preparation, and Peter keeps bugging him while he’s doing it with no respect for the seriousness of the process, and they both come out looking like jackasses”.
I watched the movie this weekend. I guess a lot of people do like it but I found it to be poorly paced, especially the scenes with the Peter Parkers MacGyvering their defenses, too many villains with arbitrary motivations, and a plot that was generally more driven by fan service than consistency. Three things really irritated me:
- Although Dr. Strange kept ascribing blame to Peter as his fault for interfering with the spell, in reality he just started casting the spell without clarifying anything first. Remember “The warnings come after the spell”? Strange is basically becoming the Tony Stark in terms of being the jerk that creats all of the problems that they everyone else has to resolve.
- The death of Aunt May was spurious and unnecessary; it was just a way of creating some artificial moral conflict and to eliminate the one person who really had a strong connection to Peter Parker. I enjoyed Marisa Tomei’s take on the character and if there was some real reason to eliminate her she should have had a more meaningful death.
- Of course, the reason they killed off Aunt May and made everyone forget Peter Parker is to sever the character from the MCU so that Sony/Pascal Pictures can go off and do their own Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters or whatever they’re calling it now of characters that technically exist in the same narrative world as the MCU but have no reference between them.
I did like the Matt Murdock cameo; despite the unevenness of the Marvel Netflix series Daredevil was a consistent highlight and would feed well into some of the more grounded MCU Phase 4 storylines. And J.K. Simmons stole every scene he was in, of course. How he exists in both the MCU timeline and in the Tobey McGuire Spider-Man is unexplored, but maybe they can make him a cross-dimensional Watcher who pops up everywhere now that Stan Lee is done making cameos.
Amy Pascal will never, ever, ever give up the personal rights she negotiated to the Spider-Man characters. It is funding her development company and they’d have to offer her multiple conex containers of cash to even consider it. Spider-Man is done in the MCU, which really is fine because they need to keep expanding their pantheon of heroes anyway.
Stranger
In an infinite multi-verse, two Jonah’s are pretty much guaranteed. And he had the role in the Garfield one also - apparently he is a fixed point in time.
He was in the Andrew Garfield Spider-man movies?
I keep hearing comments like that but it doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would Sony want to sever from the MCU? No Way Home made more than both Garfield movies combined. They even set up in the post-credits revealing that Venom (and presumably Morpheus) take place in a different universe.
My mistake - apparently not. I found one link that said he was, but I think that was referencing “No Way Home”. Per the cast list there was no J Jonah in Garfield’s movies (although Wikipedia says Simmon’s was open to playing it if asked - missed opportunity, I guess).
I watched this on a plane trip last night. It probably would have been better on a larger screen; a lot of dark action sequences that were hard to see on a 10" display. I enjoyed it even though I never saw some of the AG movies I knew enough of the plotlines to appreciate him saving MJ. The interplay between the three Spideys was certainly the best part of the movie. Doc Ock becoming an ally was a nice touch as well.
I thought the ending was sad but it really was the only direction they could go. Anything else would have made the sacrifices mean nothing. On the other hand, they could have done something like the ending of Monsters Inc - Kitty!
I had a great idea for how they could handle people’s memories of Peter Parker.
They still have all those memories, they’re completely intact - except, every time they remember Peter Parker, they remember Spider-Man. Ned remembers sitting next Spider-Man in chem class for four years. MJ remembers dating Spider-Man. Neither of them remember ever seeing him without his mask and costume. They both have specific memories of him pulling off his mask, only to reveal another mask underneath. And neither of them remember this being weird. They even distinctly remember the moment that Spider-Man revealed to them that he is secretly Spider-Man, and they remember being shocked by the revelation - which, when they think about it now, makes no sense at all. Flash Thompson remembers simultaneously idolizing and bullying Spider-Man. Did MJ and Peter have sex? Because that memory is going to be extremely confusing.
That would work if they were trying to figure out a way to keep Tom Holland and Spider-Man in the MCU. But the actual purpose was that he would be severed from the MCU and only available to the Sony/Amy Pascal-produced non-MCU ‘Marvel’ films. The entire plotline was strictly a way for Sony to separate Spider-Man from future Marvel Studios projects so they don’t have to share the revenue.
Stranger
I’m going to say “evidence points to no”. Or rather, there is no evidence pointing to “yes” as it is.
Speaking of MJ and Peter having sex.
Was there any outrage (mostly from the right side of the political spectrum) over the misunderstanding that ensued when Aunt May caught Peter in a partial state of undress and thought he was about to have sex with MJ? She said it was okay, just practice safe sex?
That’s because Marisa Tomei is the ‘cool’ Aunt May who is both fun and responsible. She’d make a perfect den mother for the new batch of Avengers. So much for that, I guess.
BTW, ‘Happy’ Hogan is now a creepy borderline stalker who won’t take a hint and intrudes on her home even when May explicitly objects. You’d think they’d at least make that a callback to Favreau in Swingers leaving a series of increasingly desperate phone messages in rapid sequence which would be awkward but harmless but the writing wasn’t even that clever. Ugh.
Stranger
None of the characters I mentioned are MCU characters. They’re all Spider-Man’s supporting cast. Unless you think Disney is losing Spider-Man, but keeping MJ and Ned? Short of doing a soft reboot, the next Spider-Man movie is still going to have to deal with the ramifications of the spell from NWH.
This seems pretty unlikely. Half of NWH’s profits is still more than any of the Sony Spider-Man movies made, and any expectations of solo success are going to be tempered by the disappointing box offices of the second Venom movie and what’s shaping up to look like an outright flop for Morbius.
Plus, this doesn’t really do anything to disentangle Spider-Man from the wider MCU, nor is such a scene necessary if Sony does decide to go its own way. If Sony doesn’t want to play with Disney any more, they can just… stop having Spider-Man show up in Disney stuff. They don’t need a plot reason for it, any more than they bother with a plot reason for all the other times every super hero in the world doesn’t show up for a particular world-ending threat. Spider-Man still exists in the MCU, and as we see in the scene in the diner at the end of NWH, the MCU still knows Spider-Man exists. I mean, if they’d wanted to cut Spider-Man out of the MCU, end it with Peter sacrificing himself by traveling to the universe where Spider-Man doesn’t exist. Then he’s literally out of the MCU, and Sony can do what they want with the character, regardless of previous continuity.
No, the point here is much simpler. One, keep the relationship between Peter and MJ in the “courtship” phase as long as possible, and two, provide an opportunity to tell the “street level” Spider-Man stories that were skipped over by introducing the MCU Spider-Man in the middle of a major cross-over, then elevating him directly into fighting cosmic-level threats. Now they can do all the “Peter Parker, struggling college student,” stories that didn’t work when Peter was the protege of Tony Stark.
You keep repeating this. Any cite?
Zendaya’s “MJ” is explicitly not Mary Jane Parker, so she is not a heritage Marvel character that Sony has had previous rights to. I assumed that Ned was also a creation of the MCU but apparently he is a minor character in the source material; whether Sony had rights to him is unknown. However, both MJ and Ned are going off to MIT and un-Peter Parker is not, so I would expect their involvement in future Spider-Man films is not planned.
I agree it doesn’t make financial sense; Sony made two blockbuster Spider-Man films by Sam Raimi and then three progressively worse bombs largely attributed to studio interference. Pascal was responsible for the original split that had Sony declaring that Holland wouldn’t return to the MCU post-Endgame because she demanded that Sony/Pascal receive 50% of the proceeds even though Marvel Studios did all of the production and most of the promotion. Now that Holland’s’ Spider-Man is an established “brand”, it is pretty clear that Pascal and whomever is involved at Sony thinks that they can make a go of a Sony-only Spider-Man-based franchise. People do things in the movie industry all the time that do not make financial sense and end up becoming complete miscalculations; witness the entire Star Wars sequel trilogy. It is not a sensible business.
Stranger
I don’t have a cite and I don’t think they are going to take Tom Holland away, but I do think this was the final movie contracted for Holland and for Sony-Marvel, so Marvel wanted to at least have a way to write him off if he leaves. Or possibly Sony wanted this one to end with that possibility.
I’m not sure, but I do think they are making plans in case a deal is not worked out.
But one will be, I think. I feel like we’ll have Spider-man 4 with Tom Holland.
Sorry, hit send too soon.
“We’re producers, so we always believe everything will work out. I love working with Kevin. We have a great partnership, along with Tom Rothman, who runs Sony and has been instrumental, a great leader with great ideas. I hope it lasts forever.”
“Amy and I and Disney and Sony are talking about — yes, we’re actively beginning to develop where the story heads next, which I only say outright because I don’t want fans to go through any separation trauma like what happened after “Far From Home” [the previous Spider-Man movie, in 2019]. That will not be occurring this time.”
I’d be surprised if Sony’s plans include writing out the hottest actress in Hollywood from the franchise where she’s co-starring opposite her real life boyfriend.
Then why are you so certain this is what’s happening? It doesn’t make financial sense, it doesn’t make narrative sense - unless the next Spider-Man picture lists Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder as Executive Producers, your scenario doesn’t seem very likely.
I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony does try to do a stand alone Tom Holland Spider-Man movie without Disney at some point, but I expect they’ll be very careful not to do anything with the character that would damage any future cross-over potential with the MCU. Cross-overs are big money makers, and there’s only so many times Spider-Man can cross over with himself before audiences get bored of it. There’s no way this is his last MCU appearance.
Given just how much money No Way Home made (just shy of $1.9 billion), I’d be very surprised if they don’t do a sequel.