Spider-Man: No Way Home remains by far the biggest box office hit during the pandemic era, and that isn’t about to change anytime soon. At the worldwide box office, the film is the sixth highest-grossing movie ever with a collection of 1.89 billion dollars. The reasons are many, one of which is that the Jon Watts directorial was not just a Spidey movie, it was the definitive Spidey movie that brought together and honoured no less than 3 different iterations of the character.
Apart from Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, who played Spidey in Sam Raimi and Marc Webb’s films, respectively, the villains opposite Maguire and Garfield’s iterations also turned up. The story explored the concept of the multiverse, the first demonstration in an MCU movie (as opposed to mere mentions), and addressed the fallout of Spider-Man’s real identity getting exposed in Far From Home, the last film in the franchise.
To undo the damage and make everybody forget that he is Spider-Man, Peter Parker enlists the help of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), but the ritual performed by the wizard goes wrong due to repeated interference by Peter. And the fabric of the universe rips open for a brief time. But that is enough.
In a new behind-the-scenes video, one can see how the brutal first fight between Tom Holland’s Spidey and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin was shot. Preceding the scene, Peter is attempting to sort of rehabilitate the supervillains and redeem them before sending them back to their respective universes and changing their deadly fates.
But Goblin takes over the Norman Osborn persona and wreaks havoc on the condo Peter and his Aunt May are staying at. The mostly hand-to-hand combat was less superheroic than something resembling MMA or a street brawl with the two trading several punches and crashing through roofs. The Goblin takes several punches before grinning evilly at Peter, who is confused to learn his blows have no discernible effect on him. The video also shows both Holland and Dafoe did many of their own stunts, though professional stuntmen performed the more difficult ones.
The BTS video is an enlightening look at how action in high-end movies is photographed and stunts are performed. Even a single, brief shot is daunting and can potentially take hours.
