How Peter Parkers Tobey, Andrew, & Tom Kept the Most Spectacular Spider-Man Spoilers a Secret

GayNrd Editors January 8, 2022

It will go down as perhaps the worst best kept secret in the history of Hollywood.

Straight out of the gate, when Marvel Studios and SONY announced it, the sequel to Spider-Man: Far From Home, generated excitement around the rumor that Spidey’s next threat was something that could only be beaten by the combined forces of all three cinematic versions of the characters in a Marvel Team-Up of all three Peter Parkers: Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland.

And it was sparked by a meme featuring the crude rendering of the character from the 1960s cartoon.

Now that the movie is out, the stars are talking about how they kept the script secret and how the studio brought them back.

Andrew Garfield > everyone pic.twitter.com/13dRwnkRnu
— Matt Ramos (@therealsupes) January 8, 2022

It’s a story that for Garfield in particular was previously fraught and laden with innuendo around his departure.

According to Variety, Garfield explained: I wasn’t expecting to ever have a conversation again about potentially playing Peter Parker. I felt very excited to just to be a fan again. But I got this call from Amy Pascal and Kevin Feige and Jon Watts with this idea. It was immediately undeniable. It 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.

The pitch was really, really enticing. They said, “You played this character in your way and what would you want to explore if you had an opportunity? If you were dumped into this other universe and faced with this younger you and this older you, how will you respond?”

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. 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.

You and Tobey Maguire really did this. This wasn’t a green screen set up in your driveway. And they have a profound impact on Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.

We were shooting for two weeks, Tobey and I, but I think we managed to achieve something that is not just showing up and going, “Hi! Bye!”

“My Spider-Man got to save his younger brother’s romantic relationship, potentially. And to heal the most traumatic moment of his own life through doing it for his younger brother. Making sure that he didn’t have the same fate, there’s something cosmically beautiful about that. It meant getting a second chance at saving Gwen.” [Stacy, Garfield’s love interest in The Amazing Spider-Man played by Emma Stone].

I can’t express how much this picture means to me. #SpiderManNoWayHome pic.twitter.com/msFLlVzXDB
— Matt Ramos (@therealsupes) January 7, 2022

Maguire and Garfield needed to keep their appearance in No Way Home under wraps and couldn’t attend the premier. Instead they came to Westfield Century City and watched the movie with the fans at AMC Theatres to see how the crowd reacted to the film.

My heroes. #SpiderManNoWayHome pic.twitter.com/1u7LO137Bx
— Matt Ramos (@therealsupes) January 8, 2022

The way Andrew Garfield talks about “his brothers” is enough to make a grown man cry.????
— Matt Ramos (@therealsupes) January 7, 2022

“I think the first time we were all in the suit together, it was hilarious because it’s like just three ordinary dudes who were just actors just hanging out.

But then also, you just become a fan and say, ‘Oh my god we’re all together in the suits and we’re doing the pointing thing!'”

here was talk about going to the bathroom and, you know, padding around the package. We talked about what worked for each of us.

Just imagine them going in cheap Spider-man suits so no one suspected them???? https://t.co/MekG4cxARA
— Matt Ramos (@therealsupes) January 7, 2022

Tom was jealous because I have little zippers in my suit that I can get my hands out of very easily.

“Wearing the suit next to my actual spider-man hero, tobey , & the brilliant, incredibly, sweet, perfect spidey of tom & I get to be the middle brother, & I get to be in awe of my older brother & in full longing to protect my younger brother.”
Protect Andrew at all costs. pic.twitter.com/TFrbaeg1Hw
— Matt Ramos (@therealsupes) January 7, 2022

To work his phone, he had to use his nose because he couldn’t access his hands. We would have deeper conversations, too, and talk about our experiences with the character. And to have Amy Pascal there, who has seen through nine movies, including Spider-Verse. It was a revelatory experience for her, realizing how much life and time she’d given to this character. That was beautiful and profound.

There’s a line I improvised in the movie, looking at [Maguire and Holland] and I tell them I love them. That was just me loving them.

Ultimately for Garfield and the fans, there was closure for the pain and acrimony surrounding him and SONY and that was something that seemed untenable.

But that too is why we went along for the ride. He is after all, the friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. He is Peter Parker. And Peter, even while we live through one of the most divisive periods of history, someone we can trust.

He is our friend.

The film has blown away all expectations and easily crossed the billion dollar mark. Since then Sony and Marvel reached an understanding with Holland and he will return for a fourth installment that will be the beginning of a new trilogy with a storyline that hews closely to the original and to the Sam Raimi directed version featuring Maguire.