America Chavez Was Originally Going To Be In ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Apparently, an earlier version of the Spider-Man: No Way Home script included America Chavez.
This was a significant detail hidden inside a story from The Hollywood Reporter about Chavez’s comic-book creator, Joe Casey, not getting enough monetary compensation from Marvel for the cinematic debut of his character. According to THR, back when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was going to premiere before No Way Home, the role of the sorcerer’s apprentice that would open the portals to other universes was going to be played by America Chavez.
Jacob Batalon’s Ned ended up with that role (kinda) in the film after Multiverse of Madness was delayed to 2022, meaning it was Peter’s friend who opened the doorway for Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield — who had already been brought into the prime MCU timeline via Stephen Strange’s unstable spell — to meet Tom Holland. This is actually a significant detail, as we really have no idea what Marvel Studios was originally planning for the multiverse storyline, and it seems like Chavez’s part could have streamlined the entire process quite a bit.
Back when the Doctor Strange sequel was announced in 2019, Sony was not going to renew their contract with Disney to make a third Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland. Feige announced at the Comic-Con panel from Marvel Studios that WandaVision would be premiering in early 2021, and the events depicted in the Disney Plus series would lead directly into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, originally planned for a May 2021 premiere.
Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez, Benedict Wong as Wong, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange/Stephen Strange in Marvel Studios’ DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. Photo by Jay Maidment. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
A month later, the third Tom Holland movie was announced, and in early 2020, Scott Derrickson exited Multiverse of Madness due to creative differences, mere weeks before production was set to begin. Between the pandemic and hiring Sam Raimi as the new director for the sequel, the movie was ultimately bumped to 2022, meaning it would release a year after WandaVision, and a few months after No Way Home.
From the trailer, it’s obvious the Doctor Strange storyline was heavily influenced by the events of the last Spider-Man entry, which raises a lot of questions as to how these projects were initially conceived. There were clearly several rewrites done to adjust to the many shifts in release dates, and we just learned about one of them.
America Chavez is entering the MCU in less than a month, and she’s staying. She will be played by Xochitl Gomez, though we don’t know where she will be appearing next. She is part of a roster of young characters that will be introduced into the Marvel Universe in the next few months, and that could eventually team up in a hypothetical Young Avengers project. Besides Chavez and Kate Bishop, who we already met in Hawkeye, we are about to meet Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel in her own Disney Plus series (played by Iman Vellani) and Riri Williams/Ironheart in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and then her own Disney Plus series, which will be shooting this summer.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will come out on May 6, and tickets are already available.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
