The Spider-Man "pointing" meme has taken on a life of its own in recent years, and even ended up being recreated in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse's Spider-Man 2099 post-credits scene.
Spider-Man: No Way Home featured three versions of Peter Parker (played by Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield), and the meme is referenced on two separate occasions. The first comes during a funny scene in Midtown High School with the three Peters responding to Ned Leeds, while the second happens during a cute moment in the threequel's final battle.
Talking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Garfield spoke about improvising those moments and the input he had in bringing the popular meme into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
"We were trying to figure out the pointing thing. How were we going to do [that]? It took us a while. It kind of happened naturally on that scaffold deciding, 'Peter 1, Peter 2, Peter 3,'" he said. "Actually, I remember having a lightning bolt and running on to set to tell Jon [Watts], 'I've got it!'"
"There's this moment where Jacob is like, 'Hey, Peter' and we all go, 'Yeah?' In the script, that was that, but then my Peter said, 'This isn't going to get old at all' or something kind of sardonic," Garfield continued. "It felt kind of under-cutty and not quite right for the moment because it's cute. Then we were thinking I could say, 'This is adorable' or 'We're so cute.' Then I was like, 'This is the moment!' and Jon [agreed]. I'm so happy that worked."
The Amazing Spider-Man star was asked if there were any noteworthy moments between the three Peters that ended up on the cutting room floor, but it sounds like it was mostly just a few cases of improvisation. However, Garfield did recall a funny sequence with Holland's web-slinger which saw him ask Maguire's Spider-Man whether he'd ever had an MRI or X-Ray on his wrists to see where the webbing comes from. Needless to say, we're hoping that ends up on the Blu-ray as a deleted scene.
When Spider-Man: No Way Home is released on home entertainment platforms, you have to believe those pointing scenes are going to find their way online as GIFs and memes in their own right!