One of the biggest rumors in film right now has once again been denied… sorta. Reports of both Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire reprising their roles as their own iterations of Spider-Man have been cropping up for a while now and have also been shot down for just as long. The next in line to shoot down the duo’s return is Andrew Garfield himself, who recently addressed the situation on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Host Josh Horowitz was going to bring up the million-dollar Spidey question to the actor, with the caveat that he didn’t want to ruin the film, but was instantly interrupted by Garfield. Evidently the actor, who portrayed the hero in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, has been keeping tabs on the rumors but claims there isn’t any truth to them.
Andrew Garfield is ready to talk about those rumors about his return as Spider-Man. You might be surprised to see what he has to say. Watch the full interview on the brand new #happysadconfused patreon! https://t.co/e84Wokl1SQ pic.twitter.com/Civpe3Am5p
— Josh Horowitz (@joshuahorowitz) May 4, 2021
“Dude, it’s f***ing hilarious to me because I do have this Twitter account and I see how often Spider-Man is trending and it’s people freaking out about a thing. … I wish I could just be able to speak to everyone and (say), ‘I recommend that you chill.’ … I can’t speak for anything else but for myself. They might be doing something, but I ain’t got a call.”
That still is not an actual straight answer. He could have gotten an email or a handwritten letter or a gorilla could have been sent to his house to sign the request. Horowitz attempted to follow up, getting an explicit “no” from the star, but Garfield repeated the “no call” answer again.
“I did not get a call. … I would have gotten a call by now, that’s all I’m saying. I don’t want to rule anything out. Maybe they want to call me. Maybe they’re going to call me and say, ‘Hey, people want this!’ Maybe they’re doing a market research thing.”
It’s easy to understand why these rumors persist, of course. Spider-Man: No Way Home is going to focus on the multiverse with Dr. Strange playing a role in the film, making it pretty easy for the movie to bring in a ton of Spideys much like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse did. There’s also the fact that, while no other Spider-Men have been confirmed, villains from past movies are going to show up, including Jamie Foxx’s Electro and Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus. With all that already known, it is hard to imagine that a past Spider-Man or two wouldn’t be showing up.
Andrew Garfield doesn’t have to be lying here about Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s quite possible that the cameos will simply be masked versions of the previous Spider-Man iterations, with no dialog. Maybe there’s some time travel involved again, and they’ll just plop Tom Holland into some scenes from the Spidey movies. Maybe Maguire is in, but they don’t want to bring Garfield back. The two most likely options, however, is that previous Spider-Men aren’t showing up, or everyone involved is just lying as much as they possibly can to try to keep a surprise in an age where surprises in films rarely exist anymore.