Nearly three years in the making, Spider-Man: No Way Home appeared on the big screen on December 17, 2021. With fans eagerly waiting for the release of the film, No Way Home performed exceptionally well at the box office, raking in a whopping 121 million dollars on opening day. No Way Home even went on to break cinematic records, grossing over one billion dollars in only a matter of 12 days—the first movie to do so since 2019. Although other popular Marvel series, such as the Avengers, have concluded in recent years, Marvel never fails to excite their audiences with newer adaptations in the franchise.

Although interest in the film has only recently grown, leading up to its release, Spider-Man has been a fan-favorite for decades in the Marvel universe. The character of Spider-Man first appeared in the 15th issue of the 1962 Marvel Comics’ Amazing Fantasy written by Stan Lee. In this version, Peter Parker, an awkward yet likable teenager, is bitten by a radioactive spider and soon gains incredible powers such as super strength and the ability to stick to walls. While the writers only initially created Peter’s character just for the sake of filling up space in the comics, readers couldn’t help but relate to this hero, quickly demanding to see more of Peter in action.

After countless comics and cartoons featuring Peter, the first official movie was released in 2002 with Spider-Man, starring Tobey Maguire. The character’s film career would begin in a battle against the Green Goblin, a man who mutates into a goblin creature after one of his experiments unexpectedly alters his brain. Maguire’s series would end in 2007 after the release of two more movies in which Peter would face off against additional villains such as Doc Ock and Venom. After nearly a decade break, the character would take to the screen again in 2012 with Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man, sharing the same title with the Marvel comics. In this new adaptation of Peter’s character, he must prevent the rogue scientist, Curtis Connors, from mutating the entirety of the population into humanoid lizard creatures. Unfortunately, after only one sequel which also did not perform nearly as well as the original, Sony fired Garfield from his role after he failed to attend an event that planned to announce the third movie of the series. In 2014, this information would be revealed to the public during what was known as the “Sony Pictures Hack” in which private documents and emails containing this information were leaked by the Guardians of Peace, a group of online hackers.

The franchise came to a stop for several years until Marvel suggested to Sony the idea of joining multiple superheroes together in what would be known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This deal would not only reignite interest in already stale superheroes but also help Sony recover from the financial disappointment of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. With this in mind, Spider-Man’s character received a reboot once again in 2017 with the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming, starring Tom Holland as the lead. Because the Marvel Cinematic Universe had developed significantly by the time of the release with a variety of new and diverse characters, the movie differentiated itself from the older movies by introducing Peter to other characters within the universe for the first time, such as Iron Man and Captain America.

The first two movies starring Tom Holland were released without any issues. However, for a while, it was uncertain if fans would receive a third movie. As ideas for a third movie developed in 2019, Sony and Disney failed to agree on how they would share ownership of Spider-Man’s character, placing the series in serious danger of being canceled. After the news came out, fans took to social media, expressing their frustrations over the disagreement. During an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Tom Holland even explained how he talked to the Disney CEO directly, expressing how he did not want his time working with Marvel to end. Finally by September 27, Disney and Sony had settled on an agreement, and the film was approved to begin production.

Of all of Tom Holland’s movies, No Way Home is the only film that truly feels like Peter fully adopts the role of Spider-Man. In Spiderman: Homecoming, the narrative focuses on a teen boy who is trying to understand his new powers while also juggling high school and teen drama. By the second film, Peter has grown from the first movie. By trying to prove himself as a hero, he loses some of his authenticity, earning him the nickname of “Tony Stark, Jr.” In No Way Home, Peter is finally acting based on his own judgment, doing what he believes is right even against the advice of his mentors. This last film makes it clear that Peter’s coming-of-age story has finally concluded, and he must accept the responsibilities of being the, “Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

In true Marvel fashion, Spiderman: No Way Home leaves audiences with more questions than answers by the end of the film. From possible new powers to broken relationships, the world of Peter Parker is anything but concluded in No Way Home. And thus, Spider-Man: No Way Home completes the Tom Holland Spider-Man trilogy. After all, “Three’s the magic number.”