Spider-Man 3: What If All These Returning Characters Are One Big Glorified Cameo?

Over the last few weeks, there has been a seemingly-endless series of rumors, linking former Spider-Man actors and other Marvel stars to the upcoming, third movie in Jon Watt’s Spider-Man franchise for Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures. Former Spider-Men, their villains, their loves…all rumored to be in talks to show up in Spider-Man 3. Following the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and the announcement that Doctor Strange — whose next movie actually has “multiverse” in the title, and is set to be directed by OG Spider-Man helmer Sam Raimi — would be playing a role, fans started buzzing about the possibilities.

Could it be a live-action “Spider-Verse?” Might we see some of our old faves suit up one more time? Could there be justice for Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man?

It now seems that those fan-concocted fantasises are actually very plausible. With no word from the studio about how many of these rumors are true or how they might be incorporated into the film, it will likely be quite a while before fans know exactly what the next Spider-Man movie will look like…but given Marvel’s widescreen approach to storytelling, it seems like vanishingly few people are asking what might turn out to be a very pertinent question: how significant will these “appearances” actually be?

When The CW launched their “Crisis on Infinite Earths” event last year, they intentionally omitted the names of most of the characters who would appear in brief “red-sky cameo” roles. The idea of a red sky cameo — named for the red skies that appear on worlds about to be destroyed by the Anti-Monitor — originated in the comics, where virtually every character DC had ever published appeared in the 12-issue maxiseries, but many of them appeared only for a few panels, to be killed. The TV version had much-promoted appearances by Smallville‘s Clark Kent and Lois Lane; Superman Returns‘s Man of Steel; Kevin Conroy as Batman; and a few others. Most of the cameo appearances were never announced, since a brief shot of somebody being evaporated into anti-matter dust would have been a disappointing thing to get if you had hoped your favorite character would suit up for the big fight.

While it’s unlikely a minor Spider-cameo would be exactly like that, it has to be considered that with so many supposed “returning” characters, there has to be a very real possibility that their roles could be momentary cameos, many “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it,” excepting one or two who turn out to be key to the plot somehow.

Would it still be cool? Sure, absolutely. The very idea of acknowledging a multiverse, and seeing some of these familiar faces on screen again in a way that guarantees we all know they’re still out there somewhere, would be spectacular (no pun intended). Would fans be pissed? Well, that depends on the way Marvel managed expectations.

With “Crisis,” The CW benefited from the relatively lowered expectations of their TV budget, as well as a source material that made plain what many of the cameos would be. Spider-Man has no such blueprint for its target audience, with few truly major multiverse stories in Marvel’s oeuvre and the very recent memory of Into the Spider-Verse shaping audience expectations, Marvel likely can’t rely on just “hey, we never said it was going to be a full role” to help assuage fan frustration if they feel like they didn’t get enough.

(To be fair, “Crisis” couldn’t count on that argument in every case, either, but those complaints were outliers.)

The other idea would be to have brief, maybe-disappointing cameos that set up something bigger, either in the next movie or for a Spider-Verse branded series on Disney+ or something. That being the case, they could benefit from the “Nick Fury cameo” kind of hype — although in 2008, nobody expected that. Now, it’s pretty clearly in the water.

Of course, it’s distinctly possible they really are angling for a live-action Spider-Verse in which all these disparate parts will get at least some reasonable amount of screen time, maybe as Mysterious assembles a multiverse-hopping Sinister Six or something. Obviously we don’t know more until we know it. Still, it seems like a good idea to manage those expectations, because if you do, you can only be pleasantly surprised, rather than wildly dispappointed if you get it in your head that the movie is going to be something it turns out not to be.

The still-untitled “Spider-Man 3” is slated for release in December of 2021.