Thomas Haden Church, who played Flint Marko/Sandman in Spider-Man: No Way Home, never really made an appearance on set.

Visual effects supervisor Kelly Port reflected on her time working on Sandman, going deeper into the character’s technical and artistic hurdles. After being questioned if any facial capture was done for the actor, Port suggested that Church never stepped foot on set.

“There were two parts to him,” Port revealed to befores & afters, “where he’s more humanoid and talking, and when he’s in the sanctum …Well, we had his voice. We weren’t able to get a lot of visuals on him, but we were able to get his voice for sure and we got scans and textures and things like that.”

There was talk in December that Sony and Marvel Studios were reusing previous Church and Rhys Ifans (Lizard) footage for the movie. However, neither of those studios, nor anybody else involved with the project, has confirmed this. While Port’s comment does not necessarily imply that the charges are true, it does lend some credibility to them.

It’s unclear whether Haden’s absence was due to COVID troubles or not, but the No Way Home team made the best of what they had with him as he reprised his iconic sand-based character.

Spider-Man: No Way Home picks up just where Spider-Man: Far From Home left off, with Peter Parker (Benedict Cumberbatch) seeking Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) assistance in recovering his secret identity after the world learns who Spider-Man truly is thanks to Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). Parker must subsequently cope with multiverse-wide implications as a result of his use of this power, which sets up the return of several villains from previous Spider-Man films (which would become one of the film’s biggest positives).

No Way Home has a 94 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating, making it the second-highest rated MCU film. No Way Home has grossed over $1.368 billion at the box office worldwide so far, making it one of the highest-grossing films of all time.