Spider-Man 3 trailer mistake may reveal the characters Sony edited out

The second Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer showed Marvel fans plenty of new footage and confirmed some long-rumored aspects of its plot.

However, the trailer likely didn’t confirm nearly as much as many Marvel Cinematic Universe obsessives hoped it would. In particular, the latest Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer held off on confirming whether Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire will — as has long been rumored — appear in the upcoming film. It’s a decision that, while understandable, has nonetheless frustrated plenty of fans.

That said, many believe that one weird moment in the new Spider-Man: No Way Home footage actually does confirm that Garfield’s and Maguire’s Spider-Men are in the film and were edited out of specific shots in the trailer.

The Lizard’s Greatest Enemy: Air — The official Sony Pictures Brasil Twitter account got in on the Spider-Man: No Way Home promotion train Tuesday night, and tweeted out a shortened, one-minute version of the film’s second trailer.

The one-minute teaser mostly features footage that can be seen in the full-length trailer, but it also shows just a few seconds more of a moment than its three-minute counterpart does. Namely, around the Twitter teaser’s 56-second mark, it shows Tom Holland’s Peter Parker soaring towards Electro (Jamie Foxx), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), and the Lizard (Rhys Ifans) — only for the Lizard to get seemingly punched in the face by… nothing?

It’s an odd moment that suggests not only that the trailer edited Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Men out of the scene, but that one of them — likely Garfield — lands a punch on the Lizard during the moment in question. Check out the possible editing mistake for yourself — as captured and highlighted by @Spider_Leaks — below:

Keepin’ Secrets — At this point, Marvel fans will likely be more surprised if Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are not in Spider-Man: No Way Home than if they are. There have just been too many behind-the-scenes leaks over the past few months suggesting that the two Spider-Man actors will be in No Way Home that it’s hard to believe they won’t be.

As a result, this moment in the Sony Pictures Brasil trailer for No Way Home just seems like yet another piece of evidence to add to this particular rumor pile.

The Lizard very clearly gets hit by something in the teaser, and it seems more likely than not that it’ll turn out to be either Garfield or Maguire’s Spider-Man who ends up being the one dealing out the attack in the film. Plus, it’d make more sense if it’s Garfield, Holland, and Maguire’s Spider-Men teaming up together against Sandman, Electro, and the Lizard than if it’s just Holland’s Peter Parker taking on all three baddies on his own.

The U.S. version of the second Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer also, notably, features the same shot of Holland’s Peter Parker lunging at Sandman, Electro, and the Lizard, but cuts away just seconds before the Brasil teaser does. In other words, it seems like it was something Sony successfully managed to cut around in the three-minute trailer but overlooked in the 1-minute version.

The Inverse Analysis — To be fair to Marvel and Sony, it makes sense not to confirm if Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire will be in Spider-Man: No Way Home before it hits theaters. After all, even if most comic book readers remain convinced that they are, it definitely doesn’t hurt to make sure that some fans still feel a small level of uncertainty about it when they walk into the theater to see the film this December.

But if the studios are going to do that, they might want to make sure moments like, say, a major villain getting punched by a character — who has very clearly been edited out of a scene — isn’t in one of the trailers for said film.

Spider-Man: No Way Home swings into theaters on December 17, 2021.