Did You Know a Reddit Post Helped Rewrite One of 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' Biggest Scenes?
Turns out the internet was one step ahead.
It’s not every day that a superhero blockbuster takes creative cues from Reddit — but that’s exactly what happened during the making of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Director Jon Watts recently revealed that he scrapped his original idea for the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield after stumbling across a fan-made concept online. The art, shared while the film was still in production, imagined the two legacy Spider-Men stepping through portals to join Tom Holland’s Peter just after Aunt May’s death — precisely what Watts and his team had been planning.
"I was like, 'Well, we can’t do that,'" Watts admitted in an interview with Collider. "If that’s exactly what everyone thinks we’re going to do, we absolutely can’t."
And so, one of the film’s most memorable scenes was born: the web-slingers make their entrance not in a dramatic rooftop showdown, but in the quiet, fluorescent-lit kitchen of Ned’s grandmother’s house. Unexpected? Absolutely. But perhaps that’s why it worked so well. Who predicted two multiverse legends materialising in a grandma’s kitchen rather than mid-battle?
The change didn’t hurt. No Way Home went on to earn $1.9 billion globally, becoming the highest-grossing film of the post-COVID era — at least until James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water arrived. Since then, both Maguire and Garfield have expressed interest in returning again, if the concept is right. "It would have to be very weird," Garfield noted earlier this year. "Something unique, offbeat, surprising… like the animated Spider-Verse films."
Tom Holland, meanwhile, is confirmed to return in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, due for release in July 2026. As for Reddit? Safe to say the writers' room is watching — just in case someone else cracks the next multiverse twist before they do.
