“Spider-Man: No Way Home,'' the next highly-anticipated Spider-Man film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), is scheduled for theatrical release on December 17.

Spider-Man free-falls at the Avenger's Campus of Disney's California Adventure Park in Anaheim, CA., on Thursday November 18, 2021. (Josh Hogan | The Corsair)

“Spider-Man: No Way Home,'' the next highly-anticipated Spider-Man film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), is scheduled for theatrical release on Dec. 17. The first two trailers for this film went viral upon release, with the first trailer setting a record with 355.5 million views on day one, and surprising fans with the return of villains from the previous Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man storylines and characters from alternate universes.

Spider-Man in a webslinging pose at the Avengers Campus at the Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim, California on Thursday, November 18, 2021. (Josh Hogan | The Corsair)

At 12 a.m. on Cyber Monday Nov. 29 — now nicknamed “Spider-Monday,” advance ticket sales for the film were made available online. The high demand crashed the Fandango, AMC and Cinemark websites. Within two hours, “No Way Home” pre-sales surpassed “Black Widow’s” entire first day of pre-sales. By day’s end, the film held the first place spot with Fandango and second place spot with AMC as highest first-day advance ticket sales since 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.”

The storyline for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” picks up after the “Spider-Man: Far From Home'' cliffhanger'— Peter Parker's secret identity as Spider-Man was exposed by his adversary Mysterio, and his reputation ruined. The first “No Way Home” film trailer showed Parker asking Dr. Strange to use magic to help restore his secret identity. This unexpectedly led to the multiverse breaking open and allowing every supervillain who previously fought a Spider-Man, in any universe from alternate realities, to enter this Parker’s universe.

The returning cast includes Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange, Zendaya as MJ, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May, and Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan. A surprise cast of supervillains from Sony’s two previous Spider-Man film series, include Alfred Molina playing Doctor Octopus and Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, and Jamie Foxx as Electro from Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”

Holland denied internet rumors that previous Peter Parker/Spider-man actors, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, appear in the film. “No Way Home” has a storyline connection to Marvel’s upcoming 2022 film “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which is directed by Sam Raimi, the director of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films. Fans speculated that Raimi would include his previous Spider-man.

In August 2019, Disney and Sony failed to reach a financial agreement regarding future Spider-Man films, announcing that Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige would not be involved in future films and that Spider-Man would no longer be a part of the MCU. This caused strong backlash from fans throughout Disney's 30,000 attendee D23 Expo convention.

The fans’ negative reaction, combined with Holland’s now famous tearful conversation with Disney’s former CEO Bob Iger — helped inspire Iger and Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman Tom Rothman to return to negotiations. Their new agreement allowed Marvel Studios and Feige to produce another Spider-Man film for Sony with co-producer Amy Pascal and keep Spider-Man in the MCU, resulting in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”

Although “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is the culmination of the Spider-Man Homecoming trilogy, Pascal confirmed that it is not the last MCU Spider-Man film. Sony and Marvel Studios Disney will continue collaborating for the next Spider-Man trilogy, with Tom Holland returning as the web-slinger.

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