Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures are now in the final stages of preparation to release Spider-Man: No Way Home, which will likely be the biggest MCU movie premiere since 2019's Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and the team behind the project are currently working to promote this worldwide event of a movie while keeping its spoilers hidden for just a little while longer.
While Spider-Man's journey in the MCU is far from over thanks to Spider-Man 4 being in development, this will be the culmination of his epic journey that started six years ago in Captain America: Civil War. Even for a movie that featured mainstays like Captain America and Iron Man while introducing the late Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther, Spider-Man still made an impact upon his MCU debut.
The Captain America threequel helped to kick off Phase 3 in a big way by tearing the Avengers apart before their next two team-ups in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. As it turns out, that movie actually opened the door for what Spider-Man: No Way Home is attempting to do with Spidey's sixth MCU appearance.
Kevin Feige Rates Spider-Man Movie Challenges
In an interview with Collider, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige spoke about how challenging it was to make Spider-Man: No Way Home compared to other major MCU movies.
When asked to rate how difficult the Spider-Man threequel was to make on a 1-10 scale, Feige admitted that the movies from 2021 are "all a 10" on that scale for different reasons:
"I mean, they’re all a 10. Any movie is a 10. Eternals, Shang-Chi, Black Widow from this year were all 10’s in terms of how hard the universe doesn’t want movies to happen for some reason, and you have to fight against everything to bring them to fruition."
Specifically touching on No Way Home, although it was still a challenge, Feige credited the movie's director Jon Watts and producer Amy Pascal for "(working) so well together" on what needed to be done:
"This one, it’s often the people you’re working with, and Amy Pascal and Jon Watts and the whole team between the Marvel Studios team and the Sony team work so well together and are so passionate about Spidey and this character that that makes everything much easier."
Feige then revealed how Marvel Studios success in gathering Captain America: Civil War's all-star cast led by Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., and Scarlett Johansson was a motivator for future absolutely stacked ensembles like Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and now Spider-Man: No Way Home. Surprisingly, it's Civil War's success (not The Avengers or Avengers: Age of Ultron) that Feige cites as the motivator behind No Way Home's historic cast:
"But I think going back to Civil War, and sort of having an idea for a movie that is based entirely on what actors and what characters we can get to work together and shoot on a single day. When that worked, it gave us the ambition for movies like Infinity War, Endgame, and I would include No Way Home into that level of ambition for sure."
Civil War's Impact on No Way Home
Putting 12 leading heroes together into one movie, including two in Black Panther and Spider-Man who had never been seen before, was arguably Marvel Studios' most ambitious endeavor to date in 2016. Then, Captain America: Civil War saw some of the best reviews of any MCU film upon its release and became the franchise's fourth billion-dollar box-office hit at the time, setting Marvel's sights on even bigger goals.
Specifically looking at what Spider-Man: No Way Home is looking to do in Phase 4, Holland's first MCU movie seemed to set the blueprint for so many major players coming together to deliver such an epic story. With Holland now leading the way alongside Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange and a handful of returning Spidey villains, the MCU's leader appears fully confident in its ability to succeed.
Comparing Captain America 3 and Spider-Man 3 in terms of hype alone is almost pointless considering what the Spidey threequel has already done, although they both came in with more anticipation than most of their predecessors. Now, the only thing left to do is wait and see just how big No Way Home can get when it arrives in full.
Spider-Man: No Way Home will swing into theaters on December 17, 2021.
