Among the many Marvel Cinematic Universe characters returning for Spider-Man: No Way Home there is Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) former assistant, and currently a major ally of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. However, as it turns out, Happy could have entirely missed the MCU’s Spider-Man trilogy, as his character was supposed to die in Iron Man 3.
During the red carpet premiere of No Way Home (via Comicbook), MCU producer Kevin Feige revealed Happy dies in Iron Man 3’s original script, and the character only survived the movie because Favreau asked the crew not to kill him. As Feige tells it, “Jon [Favreau] had a note — that is one of the most important notes he gave us at Marvel — which was, ‘What if Happy was severely injured but did not die?’” Thanks to this note, Happy Hogan jumped from the Iron Man franchise to the Spider-verse, allowing him to extend his MCU stay for eight more years.
Favreau, who was with Feige at the time of the reveal, confirmed the story and underlined how lucky he is they have listened to his note. As Favreau puts it:
“They accommodated it, and I'm so happy I've been a part of this and being able to be there with Tom Holland since the beginning. He's such a pleasure to work with, and Jon Watts [director of the MCU Spider-Man trilogy], who is incredibly talented, it's just fun to continue this relationship [with the MCU]. It is a big part of my life, and these people are friends and also people I work with.”
In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange is enlisted to erase Spider-Man’s real identity from everyone’s memory. Unfortunately, the spell doesn’t work and instead brings visitors from other realities into the MCU. Spider-Man: No Way Home will feature Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, and, as recently revealed, Thomas Haden Church's Sandman and Rhys Ifans' Lizard. All these villains come from previous iterations of the Web Crawler, exactly one bad guy for each pre-MCU film — three starring Tobey Maguire as the titular hero, and the other two led by Andrew Garfield.
No Way Home also sees the return of Zendaya as MJ, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds, Marisa Tomei as May Parker, Benedict Wong as Wong, Tony Revolori as Flash Thompson, and Angourie Rice as Betty Brant. Watts returns to direct this third installment, based on a script written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who both penned the previous two films.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is breaking box office records on theaters right now.