Fans are absolutely losing their minds over the absence of – and anticipation for – the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer. Despite the fact that Sony Pictures has offered no teases or timelines for when the first trailer for the third Spider-Man movie starring Tom Holland will be released, fervor over its arrival has been bubbling over the last few months, and hit a fever pitch over the last few weeks. It culminated in the trailer leaking online in an incredibly low-quality format on Sunday night, which Sony subsequently scrubbed from the internet. And yet that intensity remains. Fans are demanding to see the Spider-Man trailer. And it surely cannot live up to this level of hype.
I’m not quite sure where or why or how the intensity surrounding the No Way Home trailer started. There wasn’t this level of demand for the Black Widow trailer, or even Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings when Marvel surprise-dropped that trailer early. But there are a couple of key differences between Spider-Man: No Way Home and those films, a big one being that Sony Pictures is in control of the marketing for this next Spider-Man movie. Sony has its own slate of movies to ponder, and Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of its most important profit-wise, so it gets to decide how and when to market it.
The other big difference is, of course, Spider-Man: No Way Home is the second sequel in a wildly popular franchise. 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming successfully rebooted the Spider-Man franchise with Holland front and center, this time focusing on telling a story about Peter Parker and his friends as high schoolers, rather than aging the characters up quickly. The result was one of the most beloved franchises and characters in the entire MCU, and fans are excited to spend some time with Holland’s Spider-Man once again.
And the third and final difference here is that in contrast to the coda-like nature of Black Widow and the largely standalone aspect of Shang-Chi, if the rumors hold true then Spider-Man: No Way Home is poised to bring various Spider-Men and Spider-Man characters together into one movie. Indeed, Loki blew the multiverse wide open, and we already know that No Way Home co-stars Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange in a mentor-like role now that Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark is gone. And the word on the street is that thanks to the multiverse, No Way Home offers the opportunity for Sony’s non-MCU Spider-Men – Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire – to appear in some capacity. The only older Spider-Man actor confirmed to return is Alfred Molina, who previously spilled the beans about reprising his role as Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2. But if even half of these rumored castings are true, No Way Home proves to be a once-in-a-lifetime moviegoing experience.
All of this to say, there are plenty of reasons to be excited for Spider-Man: No Way Home, but at the end of the day a trailer is just a trailer, and it can’t possibly live up to the hype fans have built up in their minds. It’s a smattering of carefully chosen footage that deftly avoids spoiling major plot points, and serves to get butts in seats. So this first trailer for No Way Home will almost certainly be teaser-like in nature, maybe revealing one or two brief looks at some cameos, but far from the whole shebang. And given the hype surrounding this trailer release, will fans’ appetites be sated, or will the trailer leave them hungry for more? Sony’s hoping it’s the latter – after all, the purpose of a trailer is to sell movie tickets.
Some of the fervor around this demand for the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer stems from the fact that the movie is due to be released in December, and yet no footage or official images have yet been revealed. While this would seem a bit odd in 2019, post-pandemic all expectations are off. Studios have had to reimagine how they approach not just releasing movies, but also marketing them. And to that end, it’s entirely possible that Sony is becoming a bit wary of sticking to that December 17, 2021 release date. They’ve already pushed Venom 2 from September to October, and with no streaming service of their own to shovel these releases onto, they have to ensure these theatrical releases result in the largest possible box office return. Guessing what the world looks like two weeks from now already seems impossible, so try gaming that out to December.
As of now, Spider-Man: No Way Home is still set to hit theaters in December. And Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has cheekily assured fans the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer will definitely come out before the movie. How soon? Clearly Sony wasn’t ready to drop the trailer this early, otherwise they might have gotten ahead of the leak and released the final version of that trailer online instead of letting the incredibly poor quality one continue to spread.
So the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer will come. Maybe not today, maybe not this week, but it’ll be here. And when it drops, the expectations that fans have built up in their minds will almost certainly not be met. That’s what the movie is for.