The following article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home.
For several months there had been a pervasive notion that Marvel Studios movies could have possibly lost their Midas touch, this was due to every single film released in 2021 struggling to make money. However, when trouble arises and things start to look bad, it’s good to know the MCU can always call on its friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to save the day.
Spider-Man: No Way Home has absolutely taken the world by storm since its premiere, racking up -at the time of writing- over $800m dollars in box office revenue worldwide after a first week that saw many fighting to get early tickets to go see the movie. Although the vast majority of that money will not end up in Disney’s coffers instead boosting Sony’s fiscal earnings, Spider-Man will ensure the entire MCU heads towards 2022 on much better terms.
In all fairness, Black Widow, Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, and Eternals mostly failed to turn big profits due to distribution complications and overall conditions imposed by the pandemic, though F9 and No Time to Die also prove those hills could be climbed. Nevertheless, as stated in Disney’s latest earnings call, the MCU’s high marketing and distribution costs were ultimately to blame for the movies’ eventual losses. Not Spider-Man though, he doesn't play by those rules.
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Running on the same reported budget as Eternals' $200m, the closing chapter to Tom Holland’s first trilogy as Spider-Man is a resounding success for many reasons, but none more so than the fact that it’s a largely superior movie. Sure, Spider-Man has been part of the movie industry for nearly two decades now, and months of hype-inducing rumors involving Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and their respective villains surpass the result any marketing budget can deliver, nevertheless, No Way Home is winning over fans because it gets so many things right.
Ever since Iron Man and Cap said their goodbyes in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU has been looking for a new hero to fill their shoes and, with no disrespect to new Captain America Anthony Mackie, in Holland they seem to have found their man. Holland is exactly the millennial star Marvel needs right now, and the fact that No Way Home is a coming-of-age story for his Peter Parker will only fuel that idea even more.
The reason why Sony will never let go of Spider-Man is the same way the studio got its hands on him in the first place: when it comes to Marvel, Spider-Man is king and there is no second best. However, for that same motive moviegoers are also ruthless when it comes to criticizing their movies, just ask Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for confirmation.
It appears then that producing a bad spidey film is an unforgivable sin, enough to toss out what’s been built and start over again, thus making Spider-Man movies the epitome of Uncle Ben’s "with great power comes great responsibility". Maybe that’s why No Way Home handles almost every aspect that went into its filming in such a delicate and thoughtful way, there's a purpose to why all these characters are here as part of this story.
This movie could have brought back Maguire and Garfield for short cameos and that probably would have satisfied most fans, but instead, the film turns the other Spider-Man into full-blown supporting characters that are as crucial to the plot and Holland own character’s development. If indeed there’s one more Spider-Man trilogy starring Holland, what these two actors brought to the table and No Way Home as a whole will be an integral part of Peter.
There are countless examples of this spread throughout the film: Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin being written to fulfill the actor’s demands for him to come back; Alfred Molina's Doc Ock returning as if not a single day had gone by since Spider-Man 2; upgrades to characters that were grossly underserved in prior films like Electro, or even Aunt May; plus subtly using No Way Home as the grand stage for Charlie Cox’s return as Daredevil.
This is arguably the opposite of what Marvel Studios did with the other two films, where something like Black Widow can barely justify its existence, Eternals suffered due to its bloated cast and unsuccessful marriage between source material and Chloe Zhao, with only Shang-Chi fully passing the mark with critics and audiences. All three turned out to be flops by commercial standards and artistically they probably won't be revisited by many further down the line.
Launching the MCU’s Phase Four with brand new faces wash never going to be an easy task, it never was back in Phase One, but with Spider-Man provides much-needed proof that people will show up to see great movies, especially if they feature the few legacy characters that are still left from the Infinity Saga, such as Doctor Strange.
The fact that Spider-Man is so deeply tied to Kingpin and Daredevil’s worlds should be something that Marvel Studios continues to use in the future to grow interest in brand new characters like Kate Bishop or She-Hulk, because even everyone else in the MCU had Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America to pave the way for them. Despite the complex nature of the two studios' agreement, Spider-Man the new Iron Man.
If anything, Spider-Man: No Way Home’s success could drive home an uncomfortable truth for Disney, and it’s that as things stand today, the MCU needs Spider-Man much more than Peter Parker needs the MCU. The Marvel blockbuster remains safe in the current movie industry, but unless handled with care 2021 could just be the first of many underwhelming years for Disney’s business.