Jon Watts took inspiration from many sources in crafting his live-action Spider-Verse epic, It’s a Wonderful Life.
The MCU’s Spidey threequel was also heavily influenced by the webslinger’s hit PS4 game, Marvel’s Spider-Man, one of the most beloved pieces of Spider-Man media in recent memory. From F.E.A.S.T. to the Sinister Six to Aunt May’s death, No Way Home has many parallels with the iconic video game.
F.E.A.S.T.
When Norman Osborn switches back to his own psyche in No Way Home, he shatters the hideous Goblin mask from the Sam Raimi movie (a merciful move that allowed Willem Dafoe’s expressive face to shine) and seeks refuge at the nearest homeless shelter: Food, Emergency, Aid, Shelter, and Training. Better known as F.E.A.S.T., it’s the homeless shelter where Aunt May works, which leads Norman to Peter and the other villains.
F.E.A.S.T. is familiar to players of the PS4 game. Many missions start at F.E.A.S.T., which gets a little annoying because May’s office is upstairs and it takes a few minutes to get up there because Peter won’t run in the building (although he runs in there in No Way Home when he worries May is in danger).
A Sinister Six’s Worth Of Villains
Marvel’s Spider-Man assembles its own Sinister Six alliance consisting of Doctor Octopus, Mister Negative, Electro, the Vulture, the Rhino, and the Scorpion, with six sinister boss fights for the player to conquer. No Way Home also has a boatload of villains dragged into the MCU from other franchises: the Green Goblin, Doc Ock, the Sandman, the Lizard, and Electro. If Tom Hardy’s Venom counts (despite his all-too-brief appearance in the mid-credits scene), that’s a Sinister Six’s worth of villains.
While the concept of an anti-Spidey supervillain alliance is the same across the game and the movie, these groups only have two characters in common – Doc Ock and Electro – and No Way Home has the added twist of the multiversal franchise crossover.
InfoWars-Style J. Jonah Jameson
Although the MCU brought back Spider-Man movies feature a very different take on Jameson than the Raimi movies. Raimi faithfully depicted Jameson as a cigar-chomping newspaper editor, but the MCU modernized the character.
The MCU’s Jameson – an InfoWars-style online conspiracy theorist – is more in line with the character’s portrayal in the PS4 game. In the game, the Daily Bugle is a podcast and Jameson is a hotheaded podcaster who riles up his listeners with outlandish speculation about Spidey’s vigilante crusade.
Norman Osborn And Otto Octavius Are Friends
When the Goblin approaches Spidey on the bridge in No Way Home, Doc Ock recognizes him as Norman Osborn. He describes him as a brilliant scientist who let his delusions of grandeur get the better of him and built a machine that turned him into a monster (an arc that sounds familiar).
Norman’s friendship with Otto Octavius was never explored in the Raimi trilogy, and the timeline of their companionship doesn’t quite line up. This retconned familiarity is more of a nod to the characters’ pre-existing relationship as former colleagues in the PS4 game.
Combat Moves
Spidey’s web-based combat in No Way Home feels much more visceral and inspired than in the last few Spider-Man films, and it could be because Jon Watts borrowed some combat moves from the PS4 game. With an arsenal of combo attacks and skill upgrades, the video game gave audiences an acrobatic, ass-kicking webslinger like they’d never seen before.
Throughout No Way Home, Watts replicates a couple of the complicated but brutally satisfying finishing moves from the game’s hand-to-hand combat. The most memorable example is when he grabs Norman off the ground with a couple of webs and then uses his own momentum to slam him back down onto the ground.
Aunt May Dies
The most obvious parallel in the storytelling of No Way Home and the beloved PS4 game is the heartbreaking death of Aunt May. Traditionally, the mentor death that affects Peter Parker the most is Uncle Ben, but since his death is crucial to Peter’s origin story, he only appears in comics, movies, and video games that deal with the origin story. Picking up long after Spidey’s familiar origin story, Marvel’s Spider-Man and No Way Home both use the death of Aunt May to motivate Peter within a narrative in which Uncle Ben died years ago.
Whereas May dies at the end of the game, she dies in the middle of the movie to give Peter’s “hero’s journey” a darkest-before-the-dawn all-is-lost moment. There have been many similar Obi-Wan Kenobi-style mentor deaths in the MCU: Yinsen, Dr. Erskine, Zuri, Odin, the Ancient One – the list goes on. Handled beautifully by Marisa Tomei, the MCU’s May uses her dying words to on the full version of Uncle Ben’s iconic wisdom from the comics: “With great power, there must also come great responsibility.”
