Part of the appeal of Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: No Way Home – in addition to seeing all three live-action Spider-Men on screen for the first time – was reuniting with multiple villains from the franchise’s legacy. Willem Dafoe was able to lose himself as Norman Osborn one more time, and Alfred Molina continued Otto Octavius’s redemption arc. It was beautiful, and a big part of the reason why Spider-Man: No Way Home ranks so high on our list of every Spider-Man movie, ranked. Moving forward, it would make more sense for Sony to continue exploring these established villains, whom fans have grown attached to, instead of trying to launch characters no one has even heard of before (hello, El Muerto). And from the sounds of these Thomas Haden Church quotes, conversations have been had.
Thomas Haden Church first played Flint Marko, aka Sandman, in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. He’s the villain Raimi wanted to focus on (as documented in the Spider-Man Hollywood history book, With Great Power), because he had a compelling story regarding his young daughter, and the reasons why he was forced to turn to a criminal lifestyle. In a new interview with Acidman on Pilot Productions, however, Church makes it sound like there’s a chance his Sandman might return, only… cured! As he explains:
I would say, conversations have been had about the possibility of Sandman coming into a future iteration of it. The conversation has happened about him coming back. And maybe picking up a more fulfilling story with Flint, and being not just Sandman, but returning to human form.
That’s exciting. By the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, the three Peters had figured out how to cure their antagonists. But the movie ended so soon after that – sending the characters back to their respective worlds – that we didn’t get the opportunity to see the repercussions of that. Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) was a father and husband before the accident that turned him into Sandman. What might he be like now that he’s able to return to that.
Remember this incredible transformation scene from Spider-Man 3? It’s one of the best scenes in that entire movie:
As Thomas Haden Church continued to talk about the conversations he has been having, he started getting me excited about the possibilities for where we might see Marko again. Given the fact that he is sent back to his world, if he were to resume the story with his daughter (as has been suggested), that would mean that Tobey Maguire is his Spider-Man. The actor said:
Because there was a story that, there’s a reason that he can’t, in No Way Home, he can’t be human until the very end when you just see him very briefly. Which is really a screengrab from Spider-Man 3. Because they kind of wanted to be that throwback thing, where you see him the way he was. There’s a chain of events where he could not be human. And now, Jon (Watts) and I have talked about the possibility in the future that he can come back as Flint Marko.
Would it make sense to put Flint Marko in the world of Michael Morbius (Jared Leto)? By the end of that movie, the living vampire was teaming up with The Vulture (Michael Keaton). Sandman could be a natural fit for a studio trying to build toward a Sinister Six. Thomas Haden Church also has expressed disappointment about how Spider-Man 3 turned out. No Way Home might have been some redemption, but continuing Marko’s story could be even better.
Until that happens, Sony still has Kraven the Hunter and Madame Webb to continue building out this Spider universe. They are a little ways off, so track all of the upcoming 2023 movies with our handy dandy guide.
