For those who are unaware, there was a huge anniversary last summer, and next year it will surely be larger. For this important milestone, I’m obviously talking about the anniversary of Spider-Man turning fifty nine last August. Spider-Man has been a large cinematic and pop culture phenomenon and recently found a resurgence in popularity. Portrayed by three different actors in three live-action generations of films, Spider-Man intends to have its biggest film event yet this December.

Before Tom Holland’s third run as Spider-Man in Spider-Man: No Way Home, there was a deep history of Spider-Man’s appearances on the big screen. First portrayed by Toby Maguire in 2002 in Sam Raimi’s adaptation of the comic book character, Spider- Man (2002) quickly became a box office success as well as a cult classic among Marvel fans as it was one of the first successful superhero interpretations in the twenty-first century. On top of other successes such as X-Men and Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, the superhero film genre really began to flourish during this time. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films became blockbuster hits that grossed over two billion dollars accord- ing to The Things. However, with the release of Spider-Man 3 in 2007, the legacy of Spider-Man films took a turn for the worse in the coming years. Widely considered to be one of the worst Spider-Man films, Spider-Man 3 received an amplitude of negative criticism because of its lazy plot, bad dialogue and poor character development. The film’s failure even led to the cancellation of Spider-Man 4 and the recasting of Spider- Man all together in 2012.

Recasted for the new Spider-Man reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Andrew Garfield took the reins of Spider-Man and would play Spider-Man for a total of two times. Due to the poor response from the previous Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider- Man (2012) had a hard time at the box office. Similarly, this was due to the large amount of competition from other superhero films including Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Rises and Marvel’s Avengers, both of which came out in the summer of 2012. Even outside Andrew Garfield’s first Spider-Man film, the second did much worse critically and commercially, being the lowest growing Spider-Man film to date accord- ing to Rotten Tomatoes. The failure even led to the next Spider-Man film cancellation since Sam Raimi’s films, virtually ending the Sony-Spider-Man run of films.

After the failure of Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe managed to take the reins of the character when they made a conjoined deal with Sony to co-produce the next Spider-Man interpretation, to be portrayed by Tom Holland. After the success of Tom Holland’s previous two Spider-Man’s films being Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), the third installment is set to be released this December and it promises to be the biggest Spider-Man film yet.

Already confirmed to be a crossover between each of the three different generations of Spider-Man films, Spider-Man: No Way Home will bring in several famil- iar faces from previous Spider-Man films, including Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin from Spider-Man (2002), Alfred Molena’s Doctor Otto Octavius from Spider-Man 2 (2004), Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman from Spider-Man 3 (2007), Jaime Foxx’s Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), and even Tom Hardy’s Venom from Venom (2018). With such a large cast including all stated above and others including Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Benedict Cumberbatch, the film is looking to become a smash hit that rivals that of Avengers Endgame (2019). Even actors such as Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield, the previous two Spider-Man’s, are rumored to be in the film, which would only increase its anticipation. Spider-Man: No Way Home will be not only an experience for Spider-Man and Marvel fans, but also for moviegoers in general as it releases on December 17. With 2021 coming to a close, Marvel has been pumping out movies and TV shows monthly and will surely go out with a bang this December. Whether it’s the all star cast or the highly anticipated characters, the film is looking to be one of Marvel’s best.