Spider-Man: No Way Home's Initial Marketing Plan Was Impossibly Secretive

The first people outside of Marvel Studios are about to see Spider-Man: No Way Home and anticipation is high. The Spidey threequel will seek to tear the threads of reality with villains from the Spider-Man movies of yore joining in on the MCU fun. Not much is known about the project still except that Tom Holland's wall-crawler will star alongside Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange. 

If the first two trailers are anything to believe, things may not be all good in the neighborhood between the two Avengers, as scenes of Strange and Spider-Man going at it has been a large part of what has been shown. As fans know well at this point, MCU trailers must be taken with a grain of salt. Marvel Studios is notorious for editing shots, removing scenes, and hiding all sorts of secrets from pre-release marketing material. 

And there seem to be plenty of secrets to hide in No Way Home. Whether it is the possible inclusion of past Spider-Men in the story, or a Marvel TV character making the jump from Netflix, all the speculation seems to weigh heavy on the film's stars. 

A Spider-Man and Doctor Strange Civil War

According to Spider-Man: No Way Home star Tom Holland, Sony's marketing for the upcoming MCU Spidey threequel initially was supposed to lead fans to believe the film was a "civil war between [Spider-Man] and Doctor Strange."

In the interview on Yahoo.com, Holland broke down this plan, saying that it was meant to keep all the Multiversal shenanigans "a secret," but was ultimately decided against as keeping so much hidden would've been "impossible:"

"Remember when that was the initial marketing plan? The initial plan was to make the film seem like a civil war between myself and Doctor Strange and they were gonna keep everything a secret. That is impossible."

Carrying that MCU Weight

Carrying all these secrets and not being able to tell anyone has got to be hard. Just think about Tom Holland and his young co-stars, who have to stay tight-lipped in regards to nearly everything surrounding No Way Home. 

As for this Doctor Strange-Spider-Man civil war storyline that Sony and Marvel Studios was thinking about portraying in some early marketing material, it would have been quite fascinating to see what the fan reaction would have been if they had gone all-in on that conflict. 

The trailers so far have had hints of some friction between the two heroes, but if they had made those trailers feel like Strange was a full-on antagonist in this movie some may have had things to say. 

Or perhaps they avoided it because the Marvel brass thought fans would see right through the facade. In showing the MCU faithful bits and pieces of the real movie, some have begun to believe maybe they are revealing all they have to show. But had they gone with a thinly veiled civil war milieu, many would immediately jump to saying that Marvel Studios is hiding something, even more so than how the masses have already. 

There is not much to worry about for young Tom Holland and the No Way Home cast as Spider-Man's latest swings into theaters on December 17.