Thomas Haden Church has had “conversations” about returning as the Sandman

2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home was a game-changer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addition to spending time with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, we also hung out with Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire’s versions of the character, as well as villains from movies past like Electro (Jamie Foxx), Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and  the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church).

With so many characters in the mix, not everyone was given their due. Doc Ock and Electro got pretty substantial story arcs, but Sandman was basically a bystander. According to Thomas Haden Church — who first played the Sandman in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 in 2007 — his character was meant to have a more significant role in No Way Home, but writers Amy Pascal and Kevin Feige were unable to balance out the story to accommodate him.

“We had a whole story involving his his daughter, for ‘No Way Home,’” Church revealed to The DisInsider. “And it just ended up [cut]. There was just so much going on…Amy [Pascal] and Kevin [Feige], we all had a lot of conversations.”

Thomas Hayden Church hopes the Sandman gets a “more fulfilling story”

Church hopes that the plotlines discussed for No Way Home can be picked up somewhere else down the line. A Sandman series on Disney+, anyone? “I would say that conversations have been had about the possibility of Sandman coming into an a future iteration of it,” he teased. “The conversation has happened about him coming back, and maybe picking up a more fulfilling story.”

At the end of No Way Home, everyone was sent back to their respective universes, so if there is to be a spinoff, they’d need to tie it all back in with the main continuity. And Church isn’t the only one eager to return. Tobey Maguire has said he’s interested in swinging back into action, and Willem Dafoe wouldn’t mind playing the Green Goblin again.

For now, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has Tom Holland’s next Spider-Man movie all planned out. “All I will say is that we have the story,” he told Entertainment Weekly in February. “We have big ideas for that, and our writers are just putting pen to paper now.“

Mike Flanagan denies he’s making a Clayface movie…basically

Speaking of shape-shifting superhero villains who may get their own projects, Deadline recently reported that The Haunting of Hill House creator Mike Flanagan pitched a movie about a Batman villain Clayface to new DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran. But Flanagan himself is downplaying that report:

I note that he didn’t come right out and say “this is untrue.” More as it develops.

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