Sandman and Lizard actors weren’t actually in No Way Home
By Daniel Roman
Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, and the most ambitious film yet released in Marvel’s Phase 4. The multiverse cracked wide open as Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) tried to help Peter Parker (Tom Holland) regain his anonymity after the world at large became aware of his wall-crawling activities. It didn’t go as planned, with villains and heroes from Sony’s previous Spidey films spilling into the MCU for one of the craziest crossover films in history. Spider-Man: No Way Home featured Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield reprising their roles as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, as well as Willem Dafoe (Green Goblin), Alfred Molina (Doctor Octopus), and Jamie Foxx (Electro) shaking things up on the villain front.
No Way Home also featured the return of Thomas Hayden Church as the Sandman from Spider-Man 3 and Rhys Ifans as the Lizard from The Amazing Spider-Man 2…or did it?
As it turns out, Ifans and Church were never actually on set, and filmed no new scenes for No Way Home. Though they did record dialogue, per ScreenRant, they only appeared onscreen through the magic of visual effects.
Sandman and Lizard actors filmed no new scenes for Spider-Man: No Way Home
This info comes courtesy of Digital Domain VFX Supervisor Kelly Port. Port has worked on a ton of huge movies, from Titanic to The Lord of the Rings and many more. Recently he’s been on a “Disney/Marvel kick”; he worked on Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame as well as No Way Home.
While appearing as a guest on the Corridor Crew YouTube show, Port was asked point-blank if Ifans and Church had filmed any new scenes for the movie, since they appear almost entirely as the CGI versions of their characters. And Port confirmed that they did not.
"We didn’t really have access to Rhys Ifans or Thomas Hayden Church, so we actually ended up using footage from the previous films and manipulating it. So, Rhys Ifans, when he’s healing, we actually used an outtake and that was shot on film, scanned at high resolution, tracked, body tracked, everything. So ultimately, it ended up being a lot of that CG, especially for Thomas Hayden Church when he’s transforming. We had to manipulate it to get him into the scene lighting-wise, and all sorts of things like that."
Now that my mind has been blown, I think I’ll go re-watch the movie with this knowledge. It certainly explains why we didn’t get another couple seconds of send-off for those two characters once they were cured of their respective villainous ailments in the climax.
Fan sets Guinness Record for seeing Spider-Man: No Way Home 292 times
In other Spidey news, a new Guinness World Record has been set! No, not Tobey Maguire and Wilem Dafoe snagging “longest career as a live-action Marvel character,” a record that Patrick Stewart is about to reclaim when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits next month. We’re talking about the Guinness World Record for “most cinema productions attended of the same film,” which was just claimed by Florida resident Ramiro Alanis.
Actually, if we’re being technical here, Alanis reclaimed the record just like Stewart is about to. He previously held it for watching Avengers: Endgame 191 times before that record was broken by Arnaud Klaun, who watched Kaamelott: First Installment 203 times. With this new Spider-Man: No Way Home record, Alanis has made it way harder for anyone to dethrone him.
In order to claim the record, Alanis saved every one of his ticket stubs and got written statements from movie theater staff to prove that he attended each showing. He also had to “watch the movie independently of any other activities,” meaning he was not allowed to check his phone, doze off, or even go to the bathroom while the film was playing.
Alanis often watched back-to-back screenings of No Way Home, attending as many as five showings in a day. He estimates that he spent upwards of $3,400 on tickets to see the film. And if we’re tallying up time, this all means that he spent a grand total of 720 hours (or 30 straight days) watching Spider-Man: No Way Home. You only live once.
“If anyone tries to break my record again, I want them to think twice before attempting it,” Alanis told Guinness World Records.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is out now on DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital home release, so if you want to watch it again you can, whether it’s for the second or 293rd time.
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