It would be quite an impressive feat if someone didn't know anything about Spider-Man: No Way Home at this point. Even before the trailer dropped, theorizing was off the charts—and that only intensified after its record-breaking debut.
Recently, The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield has been under siege with non-stop accusations about his involvement with No Way Home. The poor actor can't even promote his current projects like The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Tick, Tick... Boom!, as all the attention is firmly on the last MCU film of 2021.
Garfield said multiple times that he is not going to be making an appearance in the upcoming Spider-Man film, with a new denial seemingly coming out every day. However, thanks to the supposed leaked content out there, the conversation keeps going.
One of those leaked things was a photo and video that appeared to show the actor on the No Way Home set in his Spidey suit. Sony reportedly copyrighted struck this leak, a sign that it was in fact legitimate.
Curiously, a YouTube video that was uploaded by Alex Cerrato on September 14, titled "How I trolled the entire Internet - Andrew Garfield DeepFake," went viral with apparent evidence claiming that the leaked set footage was manufactured to fool fans.
The description of this video read as follows:
"I'm sure you saw the "leaked" video of Andrew Garfield on the set of 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' confirming the SpiderVerse. I'm sorry to tell you that it was my doing, and I didn't expect it to go viral like that. This is a quick preview of how I made this DeepFake, in a few days I will post the full video."
Now, things are taking yet another twist, as it seems this deepfake was actually a fake in itself.
Andrew Garfield Deepfake Is Fake
YouTuber Alex Cerrato has cleared the air about his Spider-Man: No Way Home "Deepfake" video that garnered over 100,000 views within 24 hours of releasing.
In the comments section, Cerrato admitted that his video, which used graphics and animations to make it appear that Garfield's face was transposed onto another body, was a fraud. Cerrato claimed to craft the clips to trick the "average person" into believing that the leaked Garfield video was CGI trickery:
"Nah, I made this video yesterday during lunch. Obviously, it was never going to fool anyone who really knows about VFX, but just having the average person believe it was enough."
So does that mean the original leaked video is legit? No one knows, but Cerrato is "confident that it is real:"
"My DeepFake is fake. I can't say the same about Andrew's video, but I am confident that it is real."
Spider-Man Deepfaked
Things are getting really confusing now, and it's hard to know what to believe these days. Clearly, people want Andrew Garfield to be in Spider-Man: No Way Home despite the actor vehemently denying his involvement every other breathe.
Fans must consider the fact that Sony Pictures took action to remove from the Internet not one, but two apparently leaked photos of Garfield filming No Way Home. This is the most telling sign yet that the 38-year-old actor has been lying through his teeth with his denials about an MCU appearance for his Peter Parker.
With all this talk about Garfield's Spider-Man, it's hard not to reflect on what his franchise could have been. After all, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was obviously building towards a project centering on The Sinister Six—something that the former Spider-Man actor was interested in seeing himself.
Clearly, Sony hasn't let go of those aspirations, seeing as plenty of villains are rumored to be returning for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Will fans end up with at least six of them at once? There's no way to know, at least until the film releases later this year on December 17.
