Kevin Feige says that Spider-Man: No Way Home is not in competition with the Sony animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. No Way Home, which hits theaters on December 17, 2021, is the third film in the MCU Tom Holland Spider-Man trilogy that began with Homecoming in 2017. The film will follow up on the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home, in which Spider-Man asks Doctor Strange to use a spell to change the fact that his secret identity has been revealed, accidentally causing the multiverse to fold in on itself, spilling villains from previous Spider-Man chronologies into the MCU, including Alfred Molina as Doc Ock and Jamie Foxx as Electro.

This concept is extraordinarily similar to the 2018 film Into the Spider-Verse, which exists in the Spider-Man world created by Sony rather than the Disney/Marvel-led MCU. Into the Spider-Verse follows Miles Morales as he takes on the Spider-Man mantle and meets other iterations of Spider-Man from throughout the multiverse. This includes a middle-aged Peter Parker, Spider-Pig, and Gwen Stacy as Spider-Gwen. Because all of the MCU's multiverse antics (including bringing back J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson) have occurred after the massive success of Spider-Verse, some fans think No Way Home is cribbing its premise from Sony's film.

Related: Why Spider-Man: No Way Home's Mystery Scene Can’t Be Tobey Maguire

Speaking with Empire, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has responded rather diplomatically. He reminded fans that "it's about telling your own story," and not "competing, necessarily." He admits Spider-Verse helped "popularize the conceit of multiple universes," but it's also true that the concept has existed in the world of the comic books for decades before either film was conceived. Read the full quote here:

Spider-Verse helped to popularize the conceit of multiple universes with different characters in them. But it’s not about competing, necessarily. It’s about telling your own story.

The full extent to which Spider-Man: No Way Home is bringing back previous characters is still unknown. The long-rumored appearances by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield have been consistently denied by those involved, but there will certainly be surprises along the way. However, there are also new rumors with more credence to them that Rhys Ifans' Lizard and Thomas Haden Church's Sandman may appear, and the trailer implies the presence of the Green Goblin though it's unclear if it will be Willem Dafoe behind the mask.

Kevin Feige does have a point with his statement about Spider-Man: No Way Home. For one thing, using a similar premise will almost certainly not prevent either the MCU film or Spider-Verse 2 from topping the box office. Plus, the Spider-Man universe is rife with repeated storylines, considering the fact that across live-action and animated films, the Spider-Man origin story has been repeated no fewer than 4 times, and that hasn't negatively impacted any of the individual continuities.

Next: All 12 Spider-Man Universe Movies Releasing After Venom 2 (& When)

Source: Empire

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