Sandman and Lizard actors Thomas Haden Church and Rhys Ifans didn’t film any new material for Spider-Man: No Way Home. Jon Watts’ third and final installment in Marvel Studios/Sony’s Homecoming trilogy released in theaters on December 17, 2021. The record-breaking blockbuster sees Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) accidentally crack open the multiverse, bringing characters from Sony’s past into the MCU.

By capitalizing on Phase 4’s multiverse concept, No Way Home was able to pay homage to Spider-Man cinema of old. In addition to Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s webslingers, the film introduced their respective villains to the MCU, including Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Electro (Jamie Foxx), Sandman, and Lizard. However, while fans got to see Doc Ock, Green Goblin, and Electro’s (human) faces Sandman and Lizard mostly just appear in their CGI forms throughout the film. It’s been revealed that Church and Ifans, who first appeared in Spider-Man 3 (2007) and The Amazing Spider-Man (2014), respectively, were never actually on set for No Way Home.

Related: Why Lizard Was Secretly No Way Home's Most Complex Spider-Man Villain

Popular VFX YouTube channel the Corridor Crew recently talked to Digital Domain VFX Supervisor Kelly Port to break down the No Way Home’s CGI. Port further explained Church and Ifans were never involved with the film’s production and how they used footage from the previous films from their human forms. Read the full quote below:

"We didn't really have access to Rhys Ifans or Thomas Hayden Church, so we actually ended up using footage from the previous films and manipulating it. So, Rhys Ifans, when he's healing, we actually used an outtake and that was shot on film, scanned at high resolution, tracked, body tracked, everything. So ultimately, it ended up being a lot of that CG, especially for Thomas Hayden Church when he's transforming. We had to manipulate it to get him into the scene lighting-wise, and all sorts of things like that."

The powers that be did likely reach out to Ifans and Church to film scenes for No Way Home. However, being that Molina, Foxx, and Dafoe had much more prominent roles, it wasn’t necessary due to the seamless implementation of archive footage. In The Amazing Spider-Man, Kurt Conners/Lizard’s ultimate goal was to turn the human population into lizard hybrids and, in Spider-Man 3, Flint Marko/Sandman, while the criminal who killed Uncle Ben, it’s more a case of “wrong place, wrong time.” Their storylines and motives didn’t lend much to No Way Home’s story, but Ifans and Church recorded dialogue for their respective baddies, and fans were delighted to have them all the same.

Past Spider-Man films, notably Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2016), have struggled to balance multiple antagonists. Spider-Man: No Way Home succeeds in almost all the ways those films failed. As a result, it has become one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, with $800 million in the US and $1.8 billion at the worldwide box office. Fans who want to relive Ifans, Church, and everyone else’s return can now purchase No Way Home on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4k.

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Source: Corridor Crew/YouTube