Spider-Man: No Way Home has continued to be a massive success, showcasing how the movie theater is far from dead. It helps that the recent Marvel Studios film was also a good one and brought back familiar faces. While Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire's returns were great, one of the most notable aspects of the movie was how the story juggled five different villains—the most to ever go against one hero in a live-action superhero film.
However, one of the first observations fans made was how the selection of five antagonists was just one shy of being able to form one of Spider-Man's most infamous threats: The Sinister Six. Had Sony and Marvel Studios added just one more person in that fight, they could have finally had what they have been trying to achieve for years now; just take a look at The Amazing Spider-Man 2's post-credits sequence.
It could have been Mysterio returning from the grave, Michael Keaton's Vulture, or even Paul Giamatti's Rhino—the options were there, ripe for the picking. Yet, the final film still only gave fans five of the six.
So was there ever official talk about truly bringing the Sinister Six to life for No Way Home?
Former Sinister Six Plans Revealed
On The Q&A podcast with Jeff Goldsmith, Spider-Man: No Way Home writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers were asked if there were ever discussions about adding a sixth villain to the film so that there would be an official Sinister Six.
McKenna briefly commented, "I'm not sure," just before Sommers butted in with a more concrete answer about their Sinister consideration: "Yes, there was."
The writer continued saying how "there was always that talk of, should we be doing [the official six]," but then pivoted into how it's great to able to "reinvent" and bend the canon that fans are familiar with:
"Yes, there was. I mean yeah, there was definitely talk. Like, who's the Sinister Six here... you could always say that Venom was the sixth if you want. He's in the tag... but he never made it out of Mexico. There was always that talk of, should we be doing [the official six]? Again, though, I think what's so fun about working off the canon is that you can reinvent. And we know that people know the canon, but maybe everything doesn't line up. Maybe his past with Uncle Ben isn't what you think it was. Was Venom the sixth? Or was there someone else lurking? Who were some of those shapes [in the sky]?"
The Sinister Scrapping
On the one hand, it is a shame Sony came so close to having the group on screen. It's something that the studio has been aiming to accomplish for quite some time now but hasn't been able to pull together; fans would have loved to see them take on Spider-Man.
On the other hand, given the film's plot, having the Sinister Six proper would have been tough to pull off and would likely have taken away from the group. At the end of the day, the creatives made the right call and juggled the many antagonists perfectly without letting them overshadow each other or Peter's story.
Fans shouldn't lose hope of seeing the villainous team-up happen on-screen one day. Sony reportedly still has plans to bring them to life, though how they might do that remains a mystery.
Maybe the studio will start using its own Spider-Man, potentially bringing Andrew Garfield back into the fold, to then bring the group together within the universes of Venom and Morbius.
No matter what they may do with it, Spider-Man fans are in the modern golden age for the character. The famous webhead is getting quality stories told across the board—hopefully, one of them will eventually include the infamous Sinister Six in some form or another.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is playing in theaters worldwide.
