It was actually the ideal decision for Spider-Man: No Way Home to make Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin the major antagonist. In the Multiverse-based Spider-Man narrative Spider-Man: No Way Home, actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield who played the original Spider-Man and other Spider-Man adversaries are brought into the MCU. Wilem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn from Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film is one of the antagonists that was brought over, however his function was nearly entirely changed.
Chris McKenna, the co-writer of Spider-Man: No Way Home, claimed that Norman wasn’t the movie’s primary antagonist at first “As we were writing and filming the script, we kept thinking, “Oh, Goblin/Norman has to be the villain.” How do we go about that?” The threat Norman provided and Dafoe’s natural talent for portraying it greatly helped Spider-Man: No Way Home, just as Maguire, Garfield, and Holland’s Spider-Men teaming up did. Although Norman’s upgrade to the role of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s primary villain appeared to have some overlap with principal photography.
No Way Home features a variety of Spider-Man villains from previous films, but none of them are intrinsically evil in the story, and the three Spider-Men offer them all a chance at redemption. Due to the clear separation between his identities as Norman Osborn and as the Green Goblin, Norman Osborn stands out among the villains more. The Goblin, in contrast to Norman, is a genuinely nasty, murdering psychotic, and his inclusion in the film made everything much riskier for everyone.
The murder of Peter’s Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) by Norman’s Green Goblin persona helped to make him appear to be the most violent of the five antagonists. Despite Tom Holland’s Spider-Man having no prior connection to the variety of villains, this offered Spider-Man: No Way Home a highly personal villain struggle between him and the Green Goblin. The stakes were far higher than they were with the other villains in the film because Tom Holland’s Spider-Man had to wrestle with his vengeful emotions, which nearly led him to murder Norman.
While it was necessary to stop them and send them home, Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), the Lizard (Rhys Ifans), and Electro (Jamie Foxx) weren’t as directly homicidal as the Green Goblin. With great power comes great responsibility is a maxim shared by all three Spider-Men, and Norman Osborne introduced it for the first time to Spidey’s exploits in the MCU. The Spider-Man characters played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield related their Uncle Ben tales to Peter Parker in order to make him understand that Aunt May’s death was not in vain. Holland’s “Peter #1” needed a concentrated enemy for No Way Home, and the Green Goblin was the ideal choice because he understood the victimhood Norman himself had experienced.
The plot device of the three Spider-Men banding together to battle enemies from different universes turned No Way Home into a major box office success. Even the most powerful heroes can only be as powerful as the enemies they defeat. Since the three Peter Parkers were trying to save him from the monster in his head, Spider-Man: No Way Home made Willem Dafoe’s iconically evil Green Goblin the major antagonist.
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