Sam Raimi has praised Spider-Man: No Way Home for celebrating his big screen incarnation of the wallcrawler. The Doctor Strange 2 director shared praise for Alfred Molina, Willem Dafoe and Tobey Maguire in the action movie, and called the whole thing “refreshing”.
“It was so much fun. I love No Way Home and the audience I was with went crazy,” Raimi told Variety. “It was delightful to watch Alfred play his role, and Willem Dafoe, just seeing these guys take it to the next level. And Tobey was awesome as always. The best word I can say is it was refreshing for me.” While we’re sure he enjoyed it anyway, it was likely very pleasing to see his legacy as a Marvel filmmaker celebrated to such a degree, espeically with a roaring crowd.
Though Raimi’s Spider-Man movies, particularly Spider-Man 2, are considered classics within superhero cinema, his run was unceremoniously cut short. After disagreements with Sony during Spider-Man 3, he and the studio parted ways. He didn’t touch another comic book property until recently, where he’s been enlisted for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Maguire isn’t the only Peter Parker to visit Tom Holland in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – they’re joined by Andrew Garfield as well, and a host of Spider-Man villains for good measure. All in an exercise of turning the multiverse upside down, something that Doctor Strange 2 has to wrestle with.
Reshoots on the Doctor Strange sequel have reportedly finished, but Raimi isn’t taking anything for granted on that front. “I think we’re done, but we just cut everything. We’re just starting to test the picture and we’ll find out if there’s anything that’s got to be picked up,” he says. “If something’s unclear or another improvement I can make in this short amount of time left, I’ll do it. One thing I know about the Marvel team is they won’t stop. They’ll keep pushing it until it’s as close to being great as it could.”
Benedict Cumberbatch returns as the Master of the Mystic Arts for the sequel, with Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, and Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez. Doctor Strange 2 hits theatres May 6, 2022.
After that, then, Raimi is executive producing horror movie Evil Dead Rise, which is due later this year. Probably won’t see any Deadites in the MCU – maybe for Marvel Zombies?