The scene was in the script, but was cut during editing. And fortunately, because it would have lacked authenticity after a film full of real surprises. But No Way Home does have a nod to Stan Lee.
The latest Spider-Man movie, No Way Home, owes its success to its brilliant complicity with the public. Filled with references and characters from old films, the feature film pays homage to the entire Spider-Man saga. The dosage is perfectly balanced, and that’s also why it works. But the production almost went too far.
The rest of the article contains spoilers for Spider-Man No Way Home.
A fake cameo cut during editing
In early 2022, the script for the film was unveiled. This allows us to delve a little further into how the feature film was thought out. In particular, we discover that, in the script, the other two Peter Parkers, by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, are referred to as “Raimi-verse Peter” and “Webb-verse Peter”.
But on page 177, we make another discovery, which was cut during editing. Here is the excerpt, which takes place at the end of the film (when Tom Holland’s Peter Parker enters the café to find MJ Zendaya hoping that she will remember him): “Peter finds MJ, talking and laughing with an older customer, a STAN LEE LOOK-ALIKE. This last mention, a “Stan Lee Look-alike”, refers to an elderly man who would look like Stan Lee.
Stan Lee is none other than the creator of the character of Spider-Man. Since 2002 and Sam Raimi’s feature film, Marvel movies have a tradition: Stan Lee appears in the form of a funny cameo. But the character’s creator passed away in 2017. His last cameo was inavengers endgame (shot before his disappearance).
In contrast, Spider-Man No Way Home does contain a nod to Stan Lee: a New York taxi bearing the number 1228, his date of birth (December 28). As for the scene in the café where MJ works, there is admittedly an older man present, but who looks nothing like Stan Lee.
We can only be reassured that this idea was cut during the editing. A fake cameo, with a doppelganger, doesn’t really have anything to do with a tribute, and would be reminiscent of how some actors have been “come to life” through CG — an unhealthy practice. which is controversial. Without it turning into such a practice, it would still have made the film lose authenticity, which is full of real surprises. A nod to his date of birth—or other such ideas—is much healthier.
