Spider-Man: No Way Home continues to shatter records, as it is now one of the top 10 highest-grossing domestic films of all time. Much of the film's success is largely due to the return of many familiar faces from previous Spider-Man films like Alfred Molina's Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, but their villainous characters played a much smaller role originally.

According to Spider-Man: No Way Home co-writer Chris McKenna, the only main story ideas bouncing around before writing the film were that it would pick up immediately after the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home, as Peter Parker's secret identity as the web slinger has now been revealed to the entire world by Mysterio, and that Doctor Strange would appear in the film. The idea of having villains from past Spider-Man films appear in the MCU was only being floated as a post-credits tag.

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"And then, I don't know if it was Kevin [Feige's] idea. The idea of doing something with the other villains and teasing that at the very end [of the movie], I think in [an end-credits scene] was floated," shared McKenna during an interview with The Wrap. As McKenna and co-writer Erik Sommers began developing storylines for how to introduce many of the villains, it was Feige who then suggested that they play a much larger role in Spider-Man: No Way Home. “I think it was Kevin who goes, 'Remember that idea with all the villains that we were talking about for a tag? That Sinister Six idea? Why don't we just do it in the movie? Make this movie about that?' and then that just sort of blew everything open," added McKenna.

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Being set on having Doctor Strange in the film helped pave the way for more of the multiverse being implemented and for the villains to play a much more pivotal role. "We were already talking about the idea of It's a Wonderful Life with Peter going to Doctor Strange and trying to reverse the fallout from everything," said McKenna, "so it was already in the air that he was going to Doctor Strange to help clean up this giant existential mess that had happened to him, so then it all started coming together."

And of course, it was a good idea that they went with Feige's suggestions, as Spider-Man: No Way Home's success has made it one of the MCU's most iconic and successful films, both critically and financially. Seeing the return of not only the villains but previous Spider-Men like Tobey Maguire's from Sam Raimi's trilogy and Andrew Garfield's from The Amazing Spider-Man films as well, it's not surprising that the film has earned a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 98%.

Not with Tom Holland's own trilogy seemingly concluded, it will be interesting to see what direction the character heads down next, especially after Sony producer Amy Pascal's comments claiming that Holland will return for at least three more Spider-Man films. For now, though, it appears that fans will continue to soak up the success of the recent Spider-Man entry for quite awhile.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in theatres.

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Source: The Wrap