‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Almost Featured The Spot, Here’s What Happened

‘Spider-Man: No Way Home‘ ended up becoming one of the biggest multiverse events in franchise history, bringing together villains from across three different Spider-Man film series into a single sprawling showdown. Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Lizard, and Electro all crossed over from Sam Raimi’s and Marc Webb’s trilogies to face off against Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, cementing the film as a genuine celebration of Spider-Man’s cinematic history.

That final lineup, though, was not the plan from the very beginning. Screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who co-wrote ‘No Way Home’ together, have been candid recently about just how much the film’s villain roster shifted during development, and their latest comments reveal one particularly surprising name that nearly made the cut.

Speaking on The Bulwark’s podcast while promoting ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ McKenna revealed that the animated villain The Spot was originally slated to be the antagonist of ‘No Way Home’ before the plan fell apart. “We would break a story for two weeks, and we’d have Spot as our villain in ‘No Way Home,’ and then we’d find out, ‘Oh, sorry, I just read the new outline for “Across the Spider-Verse” and Spot’s in it. So you can’t have that,'” McKenna explained.

That scheduling conflict forced McKenna and Sommers to pivot away from The Spot entirely, since Sony had already committed the character to its animated ‘Spider-Verse’ franchise. The Spot ultimately became the primary antagonist of ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ instead, a role that turned the once-obscure comic villain, known for his ability to create portals across his polka-dotted body, into one of the more memorable animated Spider-Man villains in recent memory.

Losing The Spot as an option reportedly sent McKenna and Sommers scrambling for alternatives, eventually steering the writers toward Kraven the Hunter as another possible villain for ‘No Way Home’ before that idea, too, was eventually shelved. That back-and-forth ultimately helped shape the film into the multiverse-spanning story audiences actually got, with the returning trilogy villains taking center stage instead.

This reveal comes as part of a broader wave of behind-the-scenes reflections from McKenna and Sommers tied to the release of ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ during which the pair have discussed several other discarded concepts across their years working on the franchise, including early ideas that reportedly floated Kraven again as a possible ‘Brand New Day’ villain before the film ultimately landed on different antagonists.

For fans who have followed the increasingly tangled web of Sony’s Spider-Man rights and how they intersect with both live-action Marvel films and the animated ‘Spider-Verse’ universe, this kind of behind-the-scenes conflict is not entirely surprising. Multiple Spider-Man projects developing simultaneously across different studios and mediums has repeatedly forced writers to trade characters and abandon ideas depending on who secured a given villain first.

It’s a fascinating bit of what-if trivia for a film that already leaned so heavily on nostalgia and crossover appeal. Had timing worked out differently, ‘No Way Home’ could have introduced The Spot to live-action years before Sony’s animated team turned him into a scene-stealing fan favorite in his own right.