No Way Home Proves Sony's Amazing Spider-Man 3 Mistake

Warning: Contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home!

With the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel Studios and Sony came together to create an exciting culmination for three generations of Spider-Man films, despite the previous failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 3. The narrative featured appearances for numerous heroes and villains who, until now, had been unconnected save for the original Marvel comic material. However, despite this exciting and unprecedented on-screen development, Spider-Man: No Way Home also inadvertently highlighted a mistake Sony made with its aborted Amazing Spider-Man 3 project.

For more than a year before its release, fan theories persisted that No Way Home would introduce the multiverse and that Tom Holland's Peter Parker would actually get to meet the Peter Parkers played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. Though Garfield convincingly denied that he would be making an appearance in the film, both his and Maguire’s Peter Parkers returned, helping MCU Peter round up the villains from their universes that were accidentally transported to the Marvel Cinematic Universe when Peter and Doctor Strange performed a spell that broke the multiverse. The return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield is a big moment for longtime Spider-Man fans, especially Garfield's. The Amazing Spider-Man franchise, in which Garfield starred as the iconic web-slinger, was canceled abruptly in 2015 after Sony struck a deal with Marvel Studios to bring Spider-Man into the MCU. That cancellation led to the casting of Tom Holland as Spider-Man, and the subsequent MCU trilogy. With Spider-Man: No Way Home swinging into theaters, Garfield has officially become the only live-action Spider-Man to never complete a trilogy.

Andrew Garfield’s No Way Home appearance proves that his version of Peter Parker still has more story to tell and that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 should happen. Though it's clear that years have passed for both previous versions of Peter, Garfield's Peter never truly got closure for Gwen Stacy's death in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. He also expresses a desire to fight cooler villains after hearing about the villains that the other two Peters faced as Spider-Man, and referred to himself as the "lame Spider-Man." With Sony building their new Spider-Verse via their Venom and Morbius movies, this could be the perfect opportunity to make Andrew Garfield their Spider-Man, giving him a better rogues gallery and Sony an opportunity to redeem this version of Spider-Man. Additionally, No Way Home provided the perfect set-up for Garfield's Peter to be the one to mentor Miles Morales in live-action.

The scene in which Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) dies while Spider-Man tries to catch her is probably the most memorable moment from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. As we find out in No Way Home, that moment has haunted that version of Peter Parker ever since. In a callback moment to the scene, he did save Zendaya's MJ in No Way Home, however, Garfield's Peter deserves a full movie in which he can finally get closure. In a conversation with Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker, Garfield says that he never has time for "Peter Parker stuff." It's clear that he is afraid to get close to someone again because he believes that what happened to Gwen was his fault. Saving MJ was a great step towards closure, for him, but exploring it in a third Amazing Spider-Man movie would better send him on his path to redemption.

It's also the perfect opportunity to fulfill his desire to face cooler villains as Maguire and Holland did. Sony's live-action Spider-Verse movies so far, like the Venom movies and Morbius, are currently lacking a Spider-Man. Though Amy Pascal previously suggested that Tom Holland would eventually be the Spider-Man for those characters, Sony would probably be better served to use Garfield's Spider-Man instead of inexplicably taking Holland's Spider-Man into universes that aren't in the MCU. That choice would also allow Garfield's universe to be the place where Miles Morales is finally introduced in live-action. Electro (Jamie Foxx), who is from the Amazing Spider-Man universe, told his Spider-Man that he always assumed he was Black, and set up the idea that there had to be a Black Spider-Man.

Both Garfield's performance in Spider-Man: No Way Home and the various Easter eggs dropped by key characters throughout the narrative prove that, despite the comparative disappointment of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, this version of Spider-Man deserves a second chance. Garfield himself is a great Peter Parker and Spider-Man and would be an asset to Sony's Spider-Verse. Sony should therefore take this opportunity to finally give him the trilogy he deserves, while potentially using it as an exciting springboard for a live-action post-Peter Parker future for the character.

More: Every Returning MCU & Spider-Man Movie Character In No Way Home