While Spider-Man: No Way Home was definitely impacted by the pandemic, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures still managed to deliver one of the best MCU movies.
However, there's likely a very different version of the blockbuster somewhere out in the Multiverse. For starters, we're guessing COVID was the reason Thomas Haden Church and Rhys Ifans only appeared through the use of footage recycled from Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man.
Thanks to the threequel's upcoming "Art of" book, we can now see that the idea of Ned Leeds becoming Hobgoblin was indeed considered. Well, sort of.
While the teenager's blue and orange hoodie is clearly meant to evoke memories of the iconic Spider-Man villain's costume, it looks like Ned has somehow managed to get his hands (feet?) on Norman Osborn's glider as a way of lending his best friend, Peter Parker, a helping hand.
Ned - whose comic book counterpart did indeed become Hobgoblin - looks a little manic here, though, so it's always possible this is a Variant. Either way, we can't help but be glad this didn't make it into Spider-Man: No Way Home, especially when this would arguably be a waste of the villain on screen.
Instead of embracing his potential future as Hobgoblin, Ned was able to tap into Doctor Strange's magic and even got to don the Cloak of Levitation. Whether he has any memory of that following the former Sorcerer Supreme's spell is tough to say.
Spider-Man 4 was gaining momentum prior to the WGA strike and Tom Holland had been in talks to reprise his role as the wall-crawling wonder. The movie is likely to be delayed significantly, so we're not anticipating any update for a while.
However, rumour has it Peter will find himself teaming up with Daredevil to do battle with The Kingpin...
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