Exclusive: Andrew Garfield Officially Signs On For Future Marvel Movies
He's back!
This article is more than 2 years old
Andrew Garfield isn’t done with Marvel just yet. After his instantly classic team-up with the Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire versions of Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Garfield is coming back for more. Our trusted and proven source has confirmed the Oscar-nominated actor has signed the dotted line to come back for more Marvel flicks.
The timing of this news could potentially say a lot about in what capacity Andrew Garfield returns to Marvel. Just last week, Kevin Feige all but confirmed what most Marvel Comics fans knew already — that the next big event in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be based on the 2015-16 Marvel Comics mega-crossover, Secret Wars. Assuming the theatrical event is anything like the source material, it will require more alternate universe versions of established Marvel characters than ever.
When Marvel Comics relaunched both Avengers and New Avengers in 2013, Jonathan Hickman wrote both titles and he crafted a long-form story about the heroes facing something we heard talked about in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The Illuminati of Marvel Comics secretly began protecting their reality against “incursions,” i.e. instances of two timelines threatening to collide with one another, potentially destroying both. Ultimately only the 616 reality remained, and finally none at all. Then, with 2015’s Secret Wars #1, Doctor Doom remade reality with himself appointed the ruler of Battleworld — the only world in his new reality — and renamed himself God Doom.
Which is where the reunion of Andrew Garfield and Marvel comes in. In the comic book event Secret Wars, everything revolves around seemingly endless variants of established Marvel characters co-existing on the same world. For example, God Doom’s law enforcement is handled by the Thor Corps — a huge group of variant Thors all working together. There are Thors already introduced in earlier comics like Throg, Beta Ray Bill, Red Norvell, the Ororo version of Thor, etc. Then there are brand new ones like a Gamora Thor and a Groot Thor (who constantly says “I am Thor”). There is a savage realm of variant green, red, and gray skinned Hulks. There’s a realm where the Marvel characters are all in a Western setting; one filled zombified Marvel characters; and multiple realms based on X-Men dystopian stories like Days of Future Past, Age of Apocalypse, and Old Man Logan.
It would be practically impossible for Marvel Studios to adapt Secret Wars at the same scale, but no matter how much of it they adapt, they will doubtless need way more variants than they’ve ever had in a single project, which is where Andrew Garfield returning to Marvel comes in. The event will need at least a few versions of Spider-Man, and having Garfield on board makes things a lot easier.
Actually, there’s no reason Andrew Garfield would necessarily be limited to the Marvel role we already know him for. In other words, he could play multiple versions of Spider-Man. In fact, this could be part of the answer to a question fans have been asking for years: how and when will Miles Morales enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe? In the comics, Morales is from another timeline in which — like in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — Peter Parker dies and Morales replaces him. Then the events of Secret Wars brought Morales into the prime 616 continuity along with some other characters (e.g. Old Man Logan, the Maestro of Future Imperfect). Perhaps Garfield will play the version of Parker who dies before Morales takes the mantle?
