Spider-Man: No Way Home Artist Disappointed That His Scenes Got Cut
By Richard Nebens January 09, 2022
Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures' Spider-Man: No Way Home continues making the rounds in theaters across the world, giving fans what could be the biggest solo Spider-Man adventure ever seen. With villains and heroes from past movies and a literal Multiverse's worth of issues to deal with, the movie is exceeding even the highest levels of hype from the past year.
No Way Home is filled with incredible moments from beginning to end as the entire fandom had the chance to enjoy scenes as more than a dozen major players from three generations of Spider-Man's big-screen legacy. This all culminated in one of the biggest final battles in any MCU solo movie ever with three Spider-Men, four powerful villains, and countless amazing moments throughout.
With movies as big as No Way Home, there are always scenes that wind up on the chopping block, whether they are cut to help with runtime, pacing, or other related issues. Recently, one of those moments found its way onto social media along with a slight bit of disappointment from one of the movie's behind-the-scenes personnel on its removal.
No Way Home Artist on Deleted Final Battle Scene
Spider-Man: No Way Home concept artist Marek Okon shared two pieces of concept art from the movie's final battle featuring Tom Holland's Spider-Man and Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin on Twitter.
One image shows Spidey in the air above the Statue of Liberty's head slinging webs as he pursues Goblin on his glider. Okun included the following caption with the image explaining how the Statue and its scaffolding would have come into play:
"Lets get started with my concepts for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Early study of the final battle around updated Statue of Liberty. We were exploring the flow of the fight and the look of the scaffolding set in those images. More to come soon ;]"
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Fellow No Way Home artist Maciej Kuciara commented on how "rad" the set build was, with Okon responding about how it "kinda sucks" that it wasn't fully used in the movie
"Thanks man! Kinda sucks that only a part of it was used in the movie thou :P"
Another fan pleaded that the Green Goblin should have been in more of the battle instead of showing up so suddenly, which Okon agreed with. While Marvel and Sony had to cut parts like this out of the final cut, the artist suggested the idea of an extended cut that shows the battle in its entirety:
"Yeah, I agree. Initially we designed that fight to be a bit more elaborate but I guess they had to cut some parts out... or give us extended three hours cut :P"
Okun also shared another look at the Spidey/Goblin fight, this time with the scaffolding and fabric outside the bottom of the statue burning and disintegrating as the fight raged on. Also in the image is Xochitl Gomez's America Chavez, who watches the battle from a nearby crane.
Okun included the following caption describing the action:
"One of the ideas for Spider-Man: No Way Home's final battle was to slowly burn and destroy the scaffolding so as the fight goes on the Statue of Liberty underneath gets revealed. This is one of the concepts I did for how it would look. More to come soon ;]
A More In-Depth Final Battle for Spider-Man
Due to the constantly-changing release schedule for the MCU's Phase 4, Spider-Man: No Way Home looks much different than how Marvel Studios initially planned everything out. Back before the pandemic-induced delays to Phase 4, the threequel was meant to release in theaters after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which would have made America Chavez's inclusion in this movie much more plausible.
Chavez aside, it's clear that Okun and the team behind No Way Home had bigger plans for this battle that didn't make the final cut.
For all the action and drama Dafoe's Goblin saw in the movie's second act, he only showed up in the Statue of Liberty battle in the final few minutes after the other villains had mostly been cured. Aside from making MJ's rescue more difficult and a lot of flying around, his big moment came in the brutal battle with Tom Holland's Peter Parker before being cured and sent back to his universe.
With so much to fit into the Spider-Man threequel, it's a bit of a shame that Dafoe's Goblin didn't get to shine as much alongside the other villains and the Spider-Man trio. Hopefully, fans will get to see some of this in deleted scenes or maybe even an extended cut in the future where the movie's main villain gets the full final battle experience.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in theaters worldwide.
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