Is there excessive fan service in Spider-Man: No Way Home?

Screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers explain their choices.

At the very end of 2021, while Spider-Man: No Way Home was a hit at the cinema (it had just crossed the billion dollars in revenue worldwide, a score ultimately almost doubled), the film made a lot of noise for its use of “multiverse”which brings back several cult characters from all the adaptations of Spider-Man in live action.

Without spoiling (no more than what is shown in the trailers, in any case), this sequel plays with the expectations of fans of Sam Raimi’s trilogy, for example by offering great scenes to the Green Goblin played by Willem Dafoe, and the team also brings back Electro (Jamie Foxx), who faced Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man 2by Mark Webb.

Spider-Man: No Way Home, one last spin of the web (review)

Do these sequences which play on the public’s nostalgia represent too much “fan service” ? As TF1 prepares to rebroadcast this big success in the clear, we share the thoughts of these screenwriters.

Discussing Film asked the question to Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers shortly after its release in the cinema, and they both assured that they had taken care, with director Jon Watts and producer Amy Pascal, not to fall into this trap, even if it had often been for them “a balancing act” and led to quite a few cuts, from the writing stage, then during editing (the scenes not used in the film will certainly be part of the bonuses?).

“It’s true that it’s a complicated exercise, because we love the previous films, those of Sam Raimi and Marc Webb, and we want to pay homage to them while satisfying the fans, explains the duo. At the same time, we don’t want to do lazy fan service, because it will end up ringing false. It’s really a story of balance, where at each step, you have to think about the story first. So if you REALLY want to hear this bad guy say this cult line from a previous movie, you can’t just let that be your guide and look for a good time to do it. If you’re just going for these types of winks, you’re only going to do that and you’re going to end up writing scenes that have no use in the film.”

Willem Dafoe agreed to return to Spider-Man on one condition

“You have to stay focused on Peter Parker’s story first and foremost, and then hope to find opportunities to include those kinds of moments. We worked with a lot of smart, talented people, stopping at these scenes over and over again, rewriting them in a way that felt fluid, organic. We never did it just in the name of fan service.

(…)

We were very careful (by reusing all these characters), already because as a fan, you want the actors to have a blast meeting them again. But in the end, we must not lose sight of the fact that this is the story of Spider-Man, that we must tell the journey of Peter Parker, and that therefore, everything must be in service of this main story. We had to make a lot of painful decisions… You know, we would have loved to be able to do this or that, we said to ourselves: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if these two bad guys could do this thing?!’ But as we were above all at the service of Peter and his development, we had to move forward. We have had many “darling scenes” (“little darlings”in VO, editor’s note)these little scenes that we loved, but that sometimes you have to know how to cut.”

Beware of spoilers: we’ve been careful so far, but to conclude on the subject of fan service, it’s difficult to miss THE big reveal scene of No Way Home. Everything that follows therefore details the ending of the film.

To not “disclose” to the delight of the fans, the whole team had to lie during his promotion, with more or less success: questioned several times about his return as Peter Parker in this sequel, Andrew Garfield, for example, had a hard time holding his tongue. Sony and Marvel also deleted key elements from the trailers, in order to preserve some surprises.

Once No Way Home released, the trio composed of the latter, Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland was able to let loose, especially within the DVD bonuses. They were then able to tell in detail about their meeting, Garfield confiding for example in Zendaya where Tobey explaining that this blockbuster had “restored the taste for playing”.

The three Spider-Mans reenact the essential meme for the DVD release of No Way Home