Spider-Man: No Way Home brings Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's respective versions of Peter Parker back to the big screen, and for the latter, the movie feels a lot like redemption.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn't a particularly good movie, but the actor's tenure as the wall-crawler still reached an abrupt end that robbed him of any chance to really say farewell to the character. It was obvious during Garfield's time playing Spider-Man that he loved the iconic Stan Lee/Steve Ditko creation, and his unceremonious firing...well, it's never sat right with fans.
Talking to Variety, Garfield was asked if he views his Spider-Man: No Way Home return as redemption both narratively and commercially.
"I am so grateful. I’m just really, really grateful that I got to tie up some loose ends for the Peter that I was playing. I love that character and I’m grateful that I got to work with these incredible actors, this incredible director, and Marvel in conjunction with Sony," he tells the trade. "It was joyful, and a feeling of closure for me. There was so many unanswered questions for my Peter, where we left it. I got to step back in and get some healing for him. And also really supporting [Holland’s] Peter, and honoring his character completing that trilogy, not distracting or detracting from it."
As for what led to Garfield agreeing to return for Spider-Man: No Way Home, the actor admitted he wasn't expecting to ever hear about the web-slinger again, but it was Amy Pascal, Kevin Feige, and Jon Watts who sold him on the idea of suiting up again. He says their pitch "sounded incredibly fun, incredibly spiritual - trippy and thematically interesting. On a base level, as a Spider-Man fan, just the idea of seeing three Spider-Men in the same frame was enough."
"We talked a lot about mentorship. We talked a lot about brotherhood and about what it is to be the older brother, younger brother and the middle brother," Garfield continued. "There’s also a thing of seeing someone you love walking down a path that you’ve already walked down, and you know it doesn’t lead the place where you ultimately meant to go."
"That character is isolated in his emotional experience and physical experience. But what happens when that aloneness gets blasted open, and you come to realize that you’ve never been alone and there are other brothers going through the exact same thing? That’s a big spiritual journey to go on, man. And then we just milked out all the fun that we could possibly have."
While Garfield has talked positively about potentially playing Spider-Man again, but if this is the end for him, then at least he got to go out on a high as his Peter Parker. Fans continue to campaign on social media to #MakeTASM3, but we think it would be a bigger missed opportunity not to reunite these Spider-Men in the two-part Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.