Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has recently discussed whether the acquisition of the Fantastic Four and X-Men influenced the multiverse’s introduction in Spider-Man: No Way Home. For those who don’t know, No Way Home involves different universes or timelines being intertwined with the ongoing MCU.
Spider-Man: No Way Home features several returning villains from past films that were released long before the MCU franchise existed. For instance, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man confronts Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock and Doctor Strange told the wall-crawler that the villain arrived from an alternate universe that fans will know as the unofficially titled “Raimi-Verse.”
The inclusion of the multiverse was a welcome surprise and worthy addition to the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). During an interview with Collider, Feige was asked if the acquisition of Fox’s X-Men and Fantastic Four sped up the arrival of the multiverse. “I think the Ancient One mentions it in Doctor Strange 1, when she’s taking Stephen Strange through that mind-warping journey,” Feige said. “And it was always one of the most powerful storytelling tools in the comics - one you have to wield carefully because it can get overwhelming, but one that now with the 80 year history of the comics, now we have a 20 plus history of the movies, and there are enough characters that we can start playing with it that way.”
The concept of the multiverse is very confusing but also crucial to many of the comic book storylines in Marvel (even DC too). So, seeing it taken seriously for the movies is a nice nod to the comic book source material. The one thing that’s interesting is how soon it actually happened. A lot of people didn’t expect to see the multiverse concept in the MCU movies for a while. The multiverse topic wasn’t really hinted at heavily during the previous movies, as most of the buildup was all dedicated to Thanos.
It’s very good to know that this acquisition didn’t influence the timeline of anything because it means that everything coming out was already pre-meditated. Feige wants fans to keep an eye out for more updates and also admitted that the pandemic has changed the way they announce the news. Because of the unpredictable health crisis, Marvel Studios plans to only announce the news in a short-sighted vision, focusing only on what’s out or near.
The hype for Spider-Man: No Way Home has been through the roof. There’s been memes, internet-breaking announcements, Twitter trends, trailer breakdowns, conspiracy theories, and a lot of fanfare. Now that No Way Home is almost here, fans can see for themselves if the hype was worthwhile.
Spider-Man: No Way Home will be released in theaters on December 17, 2021.
Source: Collider/YouTube
