Spider-Man: No Way Home turned the dial up to 11 by featuring a who's who of Spidey villains from past franchises previously helmed by Sam Raimi and Marc Webb. It even saw a mini cameo from Tom Hardy's Venom and set up the Marvel Cinematic Universe's own symbiote saga in the most clever way possible.
But did you know that No Way Home almost featured the return of a divisive villain from Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man universe? Co-writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers recently revealed during an appearance on The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith podcast that apart from the scrapped Mysterio appearance, the final installment in the Homecoming trilogy also nearly saw Paul Giamatti's Rhino return to action.
He did technically make his "return" in the film through a brief mention from Garfield aka Peter 3 which was only intended to throw shade at his version of the iconic Spidey villain but that's about it. McKenna said: "Yes, there was [talk of Mysterio or Rhino returns]. Yeah, there was definitely talk, like, 'Who is the Sinister Six here?' If you want six, you can always say Venom was the sixth [member] if you want. He's in the tag, he made it [into the MCU], but he never made it out of Mexico (laughs). There was always that talk of, 'Should we be doing officially the Six?'"
Also Read: Tobey Maguire Finally Reveals What Convinced Him to Do Spider-Man: No Way Home
Considering Rhino's brief stint in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 left too little to be desired, it's understandable why he wasn't brought back. But on the other hand, the character, despite his imposing nature has always been portrayed as an "average" villain in both the comics and the animated series so I guess putting him with the more "serious" baddies wouldn't have made any sense.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is still shattering box office records worldwide.
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