Sam Raimi Loved Spider-Man: No Way Home And Felt 'Honored' By It

What would modern superhero movies be without the influence of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy? Don't ponder it too long, you might get depressed. As various /Film writers have argued many, many times before, the Raimi-Maguire web-swinging days deserve to go down in history for their indelible influence on our onscreen heroes. Before the MCU and DCEU began their multiversal madness with dueling extended universes, the hot topic hero was Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker, strutting through New York and pining over Mary Jane. Helmed by Raimi, those movies eagerly dazzled and swelled with emotions, proving that modern audiences would embrace an unabashedly earnest and even cheesy take on live-action superheroes. In many ways, this would later set the tone for much of the MCU. And thus, years later, we find ourselves coming full circle with "Spider-Man: No Way Home," Tom Holland's third solo run as Peter Parker, which also includes its fair share of callbacks to other live-action iterations of the web-crawler.

While it's been years since Sam Raimi was behind the camera of a Peter Parker story, he's making his return to the realm of Marvel heroes with "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." But that doesn't mean he can't find time to drop a line or two to his old superpowered friend. While chatting about the upcoming film for the May 2022 issue of Empire Magazine, Raimi mentioned his love for "No Way Home," saying:

 "I was honored. It's like someone said, 'You know your old friends that have passed away? We've found a way to bring them back for a brief time.'"

This isn't the first time Raimi has been asked about his feelings on Spidey's latest outing — and as we approach the release of the "Doctor Strange" sequel and his press rounds ramp up, I'm guessing the question will continue — but the director only has love for the film that both honors and pokes fun as his superhero past.

"No Way Home" is influenced by Raimi's trilogy in more ways than one — some purposeful and others just inherent, at this point. For one thing, it straight-up pulls in characters from past Spidey movies. The moratorium on minor plot spoilers has passed by now, right? At this point, the cat is way out of the bag. Even serial liar Andrew Garfield is fessing up to the truth!

Unless you've managed to avoid this movie's internet takeover and haven't seen a single drop of footage since the first trailer, then you know by now that "No Way Home" features Alfred Molina's Doctor Otto Octavius, Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborne, and Spidey himself, Tobey Maguire. With them, the film pays homage with some good ol' fashioned fanboying, featuring bundles of references and revisiting some classic (and heavily memed) lines. 

Moviegoers a little less "in the know" no doubt had to endure whilst pop culture nerds geeked out at each reference. And for the nerdiest watchers of all, the film also honors the director through stylistic choices. "No Way Home" featured some vintage Raimi camera work, which Jon Watts evidently referred to as Raimi Cam: the quick zooms and sudden cuts that Raimi lovers will recognize from his stylistic repertoire. And while paying homage is all fun and good, our next foray into big screen MCU land puts Raimi at the helm, injecting his sensibilities all on his own.

"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" will come to theaters on May 6, 2022. The May 2022 issue of Empire Magazine will hit shelves on Thursday, March 17, 2022.