Spider-Man: No Way Home: Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield helped writers develop their characters in new Spidey movie

Featuring Tom Holland and Zendaya, the film has become the biggest movie of the year, earning more than $1 billion globally and $500 domestically, the highest in Sony history.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home has been the talk of the town ever since it was released and now that it has, it is breaking several records with box office collections and reception it has been getting from its fans. A huge credit of course goes to the writers behind the scenes as well for writing such an ambitious project. It sure was not easy for screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers to explore the concept of multiverse and ideate on the plan to get all three Spideys together in one frame and convince retired Spidey actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to suit up as Peter Parker once again.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the writers talked about how Maguire and Garfield were signed on for the films but hadn't received any scripts pages and how the two helped them develop their characters arcs in the movie. Due to increasing pressure, the writers hunkered down before Christmas and shared the scripts with the actors. They reportedly liked it and also helped them develop their characters further. Sommers told the portal that they had very interesting thoughts. "No one knows the character as well as — or gives as much thought to the character — as someone who has to then embody it and sell it. … It definitely shaped what we did,” he said adding that their ideas elevated everything that they were going for and they were helping Tom's Peter Parker on his journey of becoming what he did. “There’s a crucial, moral moment that they help him get through in the climax of the movie. So much of that was brought by Tobey and Andrew’s ideas and shaping of what they thought their characters could bring to this story,” he said.

Maguire, who played the superhero in the first three Spider-man movies from 2002-07, wanted to keep things minimal about his characters post Spider-Man 3 and Garfield wanted to explore the dark side of his character Peter Parker who loses the love of his life. Garfield also reportedly insisted on his Parker being the middle brother.

But it wasn't easy to get them on board. The writers recall how they knew they wanted all three together but had to develop something crucial for them that could also take their stories ahead. "At a certain point, we had to get them Act III. We had to get those pages to them literally a year ago, we were holed up getting pages to them before Christmas of last year," said McKenna adding that the actors had an idea and trusted them with it even before seeing the script pages. The team was making a lot of changes due to the pandemic and was heading to shoot. They made several changes in the script and finally handed it over to Maguire and Garfield. "Luckily they read the pages and they were like, “Oh, OK, yes! We can work with this,” he said.

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