Spider-Man Writers Speak Out on How No Way Home Could Start a Brand New Trilogy

It’s been almost two weeks since Spider-Man: No Way Home first arrived in theaters, and its various surprises and character beats are still being digested by fans. The film not only provides a significant new story for Peter Parker / Spider-Man (Tom Holland), but it weaved in elements of the larger Spider-Man film universe, all setting Holland’s Spider-Man up with a new status quo. While Holland and those tied to the franchise had previously played coy about the onscreen future of his Spider-Man, we already know that a fourth Spider-Man film is now in the works. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, No Way Home co-writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers spoke about the bittersweet note the film ends up on — and how it sets up the future films.

“We knew we were going to end up in that place,” Sommers explained. “As far as what it means, whether or not there are going to be more? All we could do was try to service this story and tell what we felt was the best version of this story. It’s ended in a place where it could feel like a satisfying to this particular Spider-Man, or it definitely could keep going. We get this team together in a room – and again, each one of these movies has had a big thing from the previous to react to. To be a story engine. If there were to be another one, we have this big change at the end that would be a huge story engine to what comes next. I think it could be a satisfying conclusion or just another really fun, inciting incident for another story. I hope they do more. But I don’t know.”

“I think it’s a fitting ending if it had to end this way,” McKenna added. “We never know. ‘Oh, is Tom doing another one? Will we be a part of it?’ At a certain point we just got to keep our eye on the one in front of us. ‘Is this a satisfying story that doesn’t just feel like we are ending on a cliffhanger that is trying to trick you in to the next one?’ I do feel with this ending, Peter makes a sacrifice. There are all these Marvel movies about him trying to figure out what it is to be a hero, what it is to be Spider-Man, what it is to be Peter Parker, how to balance both, how to have it all. He gets to have it all at the end of the last movie, right before that tag and then it’s all stripped away. ‘Oh no! What are they going to do next time?’ This one feels like it’s more mature because it really is, as Doctor Strange says, ‘You are trying to have it all. You can’t have it all. You’ve got to make a choice.’ Whereas the Goblin is telling him the entire time, ‘You’re a God. You can have it all! Stop trying to make a choice.’ But we know that the right thing is he can’t be endangering his loved ones. He loves these people so much that he can’t be a part of their lives and he knows that for now – is it going to be an Andrew Garfield life? No. I don’t think so. Andrew Garfield went into bitterness and darkness. I don’t see that for this one. He’s hopeful. He has chosen this life. He could spill the beans and get MJ and Ned back and he could convince them of everything and have everything he wanted when he walked into Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum. He could get it, but now he has a choice and he doesn’t make that choice because he knows ultimately there’s a sacrifice that has to be made if he’s going to be the person that May raised him to be. This is the responsibility that he now has to live with. In a lot of ways, this is the other two [Spider-Men] helping him get to a place where maybe they got to before he did. This is the great sacrifice. The death of May is the turning point in his life and really turns what it means to be Peter Parker and Spider-Man into a different place for him.”