#No Way Home Sends Out Gratitude to a Critical Yet Crucial Marvel Figure

“#No Way Home Sends Out Gratitude to a Critical Yet Crucial Marvel Figure”

Avi Arad may remain in the background, and maintain an off-camera presence; however, the studio that he helped establish its grounds into the filmmaking domain still holds him high gratitude. In the film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, wherein Avi Arad acted as an Executive Producer, he has been given a special appreciation and gratitude message during the credits roll. In a grandiose gesture, right after crediting the cast, the credits carried an emphasized message addressed to Arad, that said:

THE FILMMAKERS WOULD LIKE TO GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE THE ORIGINAL TRUE BELIEVER, AVI ARAD, WHOSE VISION LED THE WAY TO [BRING] THESE ICONIC CHARACTERS TO THE SCREEN.”

Having Arad recognized for his contribution to the live-action conversion of Marvel Comics’ character comes from his initial efforts in licensing deals for producing films on Marvel characters that helped kickstart the studio and secure large fundings and profits. After Arad’s exit, Marvel Studios’ command was exclusively handed over to Kevin Feige, who later helped the company to merge with Disney and create what we know today as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, the seeds of everything were sown a long time ago, and Arad had a huge role in it.

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For the uninitiated, Avi Arad is the founder of Marvel Studios, which he created back in 1993. Arad played an essential role in securing funds for the company through various licensing deals, which resulted in Marvel Comics’ characters entering mainstream cinema foray. In 1998, Blade became the first film to be licensed by Marvel Studios and became a huge commercial hit. A couple of years later, Arad executive-produced X-Men with 20th Century Fox, which, along with Blade proved Arad’s formula of creating superhero-centric films a success. Arad’s greatest licensing deal came from his collaboration with Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Releasing, which resulted in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy, which in fact is the true reason for this gratitude text that No Way Home credits carried.

Spider-Man: No Way Home brought Marvel Studios’ Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Sony’s lasting success with Spider-Man, a prolific Marvel Comics character much closer by merging plotlines, character arcs, and actors from the previous films into one, thus, creating a wholesome story. The film also opened up the multiverse up on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a concept first introduced in Loki and eventually gave the audience a glimpse of how that concept can expand MCU to a broader scope, allowing old and forthcoming stories to merge, conjoin, or intersect, thus, cultivating something unique, which would also have its roots back to early projects created by Marvel. This would probably not have been possible without Arad.

Avi Arad’s early work with licensing deals and producing films based on Marvel Comics characters brought Marvel into an effective financial standpoint, which led to the creation of Marvel Studios as we know it today. Though Arad was also a critical figure in the executive lineup of Marvel Studios. The sack of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 and the failure of several Marvel films such as Daredevil, Elektra, and Fantastic Four Series is often laid on Arad. It’s believed that it was his creative clashes and differences with the other studio heads which led to some reckless decision-making in regard to the films that at the time were released under the Marvel banner. It eventually led to Avi’s exit from the studio as CEO, paving a way for his protege, Kevin Feige to take charge.

In Arad’s defense of his actions, he told Deadline in 2019,

There are a lot of theories behind it, but it really doesn’t matter. I tried correcting some of them and it always looked like an aggressive posture by someone who is begrudging.

Despite whatever is said about him, Arad has continued to deliver with his Spider-man-related projects. It was him who brought The Amazing Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield and also produced the Academy Award winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a live-action iteration of which was loosely taken into account in No Way Home. Even when The Amazing Spider-Man series failed, Arad along with Amy Pascal revived the franchise with Venom, which, now dubbed as Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, will remain adjunct with MCU, and that too with probable chances of crossovers.

The gesture is probably Feige honoring his mentor, whom he has credited as one of the creators along with Sam Raimi whom he watched closely while working on Spider-Man (2002) in his early days when Arad picked him for Marvel Studios. And from where Marvel Studios has come with Spider-Man with No Way Home,, the character arc of the web-crawler has somehow headed back to Marvel’s roots. So, in a way, without Avi Arad, this movie wouldn’t have been possible and therefore, probably, the planned crossover of events between these franchises in the future wouldn’t be possible about him either.

Avi Arad is next producing Morbius, an SSU project, as well as Uncharted, which will interestingly star Tom Holland. Though Marvel has credited him in an emphasized manner in No Way Home, looks like Avi Arad is still going to swing around Marvel with a number of projects lined up, that’s going to reshape the future of both Marvel Studios and Spider-Man.