Spider-Man: No Way Home is without a doubt the most massive event to ever happen in live-action Spider-Man movies – and one that opens many, many, doors (portal pun) to what the franchise can do next. (All the Spider-Man: No Way Home Spoilers Follow!) Spider-Man: No Way Home brings together the three versions of Peter Parker/Spider-Man that have been onscreen: Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield. However, modern movie audiences have another Spider-Man character they know from the big screen: Miles Morales, the central Spider-Man character of the Into the Spider-Verse animated movie franchise.
Now, thanks to Spider-Man: No Way Home, the stage has been set for Miles Morales to make his live-action screen debut, as well!
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The climactic battle of No Way Home sees “Peter 1” (Holland), “Peter 2” (Maguire) and “Peter 3” (Garfield) all unite to battle The ‘Sinister Six’ team put together by Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). The three Spider-Men take the benevolent route of “curing” each of the respective vllains and ending the cycle of violence and death that seems to claw at Peter’s life in any dimension. That battle is personal for each version of Spider-Man, for differing reasons – including some unresolved issues between Garfield’s Spider-Man and Jamie Foxx’s Electro, leftover from The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Electro’s “cure” requires removing Tony Stark’s arc reactor from his grasp, and using a module to drain the electricity from Max Dillon’s body. The procedure is successful, and a powered-down Max gets a moment to finally, truly, meet his idol (read: obsession) Spider-Man. Garfield’s Peter Parker even unmasks to prove to Max that their no longer foes and Dillon is surprised to see his Spider-Man is indeed just a kid. Max then remarks that he’s a bit disappointed because he figured his Spider-Man was black (being from Queens and all…), saying something to the effect that ‘there has to be a black Spider-Man out there somewhere.’
If you saw Spider-Man: No Way Home in theaters, rest assured that the crowd collectively knew (and celebrated) what that line from Jamie Foxx meant. It was the first real hinting reference in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and/or Sony’s Spider-Man Universe) that live-action Miles Morales exists.
After the success of both Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and the Spider-Man: Miles Morales game it seems like a no-brainer that Miles would be inducted into the live-action side of Marvel movies and/or TV – but the logistics of how to do it are actually kind of tricky. Miles is currently anchoring the animated side of Sony Entertainment, with a sequel film, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, already set to be one of the biggest releases of 2022. With everything Sony already has in the works building its SSU franchise (Morbius, Kraven, a Venom threequel, Spider-Man 4 with Tom Holland) there’s really no motivation for Sony to rush getting Miles into the live-action universe – at least not until the current slate of projects is cleared out a bit. There’s also a question of which universe Miles would exist in, the SSU or MCU.
…Then again, fans will keep on wondering why that line referencing Miles Morales made it into Spider-Man: No Way Home, and if it isn’t a sign of what’s soon to come – whereever and however that arrival happens.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now in theaters.
