8 Movies We Didn’t Know Were Origin Stories Going In

by Andrew Pollard

1. Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home Tom Holland
Marvel Studios

While Spider-Man: No Way Home proved to simultaneously be a sequel to Spider-Man: Far From Home, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, the film also manages to be a marvellous reset for Tom Holland's Peter Parker.

By the time No Way Home rolls to a close, Peter has lost his family, his girlfriend and all of his friends, with Aunt May dead and the world having had its collective mind erased so that nobody knows who Peter Parker is. This is as definitive a hard reset as has been seen to date in the MCU, with No Way Home essentially serving as an origin story for a fresh take on Spider-Man.

Moving forward, this take on Spidey is out on his own, seemingly set to work more as a street-level hero rather than battling intergalactic threats and otherworldly rogues. Gone is Aunt May, out of reach is MJ, and so significant is this change in direction for ol' Web-head that he was even given a new, more traditional outfit that screams back to the iconic artwork of the likes of Steve Ditko and John Romita.

Without any of us expecting it, Spider-Man: No Way Home completely reset the chess board for the MCU's Spider-Man - with the pieces in place to make this latest cinematic outing a fresh origin for this version of the Web-slinger.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer and Presenter, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.