'Spider-Man' Sequel Filming Start Date Revealed; Jon Watts Confirmed To Return

[bat39]

I think it would have been less of an issue if there was some way to bring back Tobey Maguire or even Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man into MCU. In those cases, you had the characters already established and affixed as a friendly neighborhood hero and their own adventures and backstory to refer to as shorthand, though Maguire moreso than Garfield (whose films dealt with weird science and corporate conspiracy elements which is also a departure from the grounded story level). In the case of Tom Holland's Spider-Man, the movies basically depend on the audience's familiarity with other versions of Spider-Man to insert and fill in the blanks as to Uncle Ben and other stuff, while having their Spider-Man operate without any reference to those motivations and themes. So the audience knows that Spider-Man is the friendly neighborhood hero but Homecoming has Tony Stark tell him to be that guy as if this was a new thing for him.

I know rehashing the origin and so on can be hard and exposition is always hard to do but you do need to clarify that stuff. To go back to James Bond, after Connery stepped down all Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan had to do was make vague references and statements here and there to previous adventures and that was it, audiences could fill it up. It was the same continuity but different actors and you had broad strokes. But when they did Daniel Craig as an actor, they realized that his unique quality as a performer and their more grounded and human tone needed them to re-establish and re-introduce him from the ground up. The 90s Batman movies also did that. Like after Micheal Keaton stepped down, both Val Kilmer and George Clooney were the same guy but since they were different actors only vaguest references movie-to-movie were kept. In the case of Sony, they recast Spider-Man but change the continuity each time, and yet with Homecoming, to avoid rehashing the story they don't make any reference or allusion to that even if they need audiences to keep that in mind.

ITSV recognized that with its hilarious origin montages, "Let's begin from the start..." and so on. You had to reintroduce and summarize each Spider-Man and establish them as similar-but-different.

Yeah, I get what you mean. And you're not entirely wrong!

But I guess all this is kinda intentional on Marvel's part. They expect audiences to already have a pre-conceived idea of who and what Spider-Man is, as a character and pop-cultural icon, based on the previous Sony movies. The MCU Spider-Man is a bit of a variation on the concept of a 'reboot', in that its not really a reboot of 'Spider-Man', so much as it is a reboot that presents 'Spider-Man in the MCU'.

So they skip over all the stuff we're already familiar with - the spider bite, Uncle Ben, Jameson, iconic foes like Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Venom. Instead they focus more on how the Spider-Man mythos work in the larger context of the MCU. So we have Tony Stark being this major mentor figure to Peter Parker. Spider-Man's suit basically being a kind of low-key Iron Man armor, and Spidey himself being seen as a successor to Iron Man's legacy. We have the Vulture being motivated by the events of an Avengers film. We have Spider-Man being recruited by Nick Fury and SHIELD. We've even got Aunt May being hit on by Tony Stark and Happy Hogan. Now the latest trailer even reveals that spoilers:

the plot is being kicked off as a direct result of the Snap in Endgame.

end of spoilers

And because they're focused on reinventing Spider-Man and his mythos for the MCU, they're also shaking things up to play against our expectations based on previous movies. Hence the 'new' MJ, that great Liz/Vulture twist, Peter's best friend being Ned Leeds, Flash being an intellectual rival to Peter etc.

[WebSlingWonder]

...

I think what we have here is a classic case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Spider-Man didn't need to be in the MCU in this way, and disregarding the elements that make him Spider-Man, including his world, villains, and cast, is really off-putting for fans of the character, especially when other adaptations can include those elements (AND the larger Marvel Universe), and make them work. It just doesn't make sense why Marvel Studios gets a pass when others don't.

[EsotericFailures]

In favor of the idea, spoilers:

this would be a way to provide a satisfying conclusion to the Maguire and Garfield Spider-Men.

end of spoilers

I hate this idea so much.

spoilers:

It's been 12 years since Spider-Man 3. We've moved on and don't need a fanfic ending to that Spider-Man. The Garfield movies were terrible and audiences don't need reminding of them. What we need is the Tom Holland Spider-Man to get his own movies and his own development, fighting street level villains and hanging out with the Avengers. When he's done enough MOVIES he can pass the mantle onto Miles Morales. No need for the MCU Spider-Man to repeat what Into the Spider-Verse already did but more fan servicey.

end of spoilers

[Frontier]

Raimi is an expert stylist, sure. His films have a unique visual stamp. But both Webb and Watts have handled Spidey's action with a sure hand.

I'd actually give Webb the edge over Watts since Webb's Spidey really moved and fought like you'd expect Spidey too. Watts' felt more...clinical, I guess?

[bat39]

I think what we have here is a classic case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Spider-Man didn't need to be in the MCU in this way, and disregarding the elements that make him Spider-Man, including his world, villains, and cast, is really off-putting for fans of the character, especially when other adaptations can include those elements (AND the larger Marvel Universe), and make them work. It just doesn't make sense why Marvel Studios gets a pass when others don't.

Well...its a different direction, not necessarily a bad one. Obviously, like any departure from the established idea of a character, its bound to have its detractors.

I think of the MCU Spider-Man as an interesting alternate take on the character. He doesn't at all match up to my mental image of how Spider-Man should be, but he's an entertaining alternative in his own right.

Plus, Homecoming did pretty well and Tom Holland's Peter Parker has generally been quiet well-received. So for the most part, Marvel's gambit is paying off. Though it remains to be seen how well-received Far from Home is.

[Frontier]

Well...its a different direction, not necessarily a bad one. Obviously, like any departure from the established idea of a character, its bound to have its detractors.

I think of the MCU Spider-Man as an interesting alternate take on the character. He doesn't at all match up to my mental image of how Spider-Man should be, but he's an entertaining alternative in his own right.

Plus, Homecoming did pretty well and Tom Holland's Peter Parker has generally been quiet well-received. So for the most part, Marvel's gambit is paying off. Though it remains to be seen how well-received Far from Home is.

For me it helps to think of him less as Spider-Man and more of a...Tim Drake Robin character, with Tony Stark as Batman and The Avengers as the Justice League.

[WebSlingWonder]

Well...its a different direction, not necessarily a bad one. Obviously, like any departure from the established idea of a character, its bound to have its detractors.

I think of the MCU Spider-Man as an interesting alternate take on the character. He doesn't at all match up to my mental image of how Spider-Man should be, but he's an entertaining alternative in his own right.

Plus, Homecoming did pretty well and Tom Holland's Peter Parker has generally been quiet well-received. So for the most part, Marvel's gambit is paying off. Though it remains to be seen how well-received Far from Home is.

It doesn't bother you a little that we didn't get prime Spider-Man in the MCU after so many years of waiting for it? Like we KNOW we could have gotten something better and we're not just settling for less?

[EsotericFailures]

The MCU reinvents a lot of characters. Some of the changes, like making Vulture the father of Liz, are pretty classic Spider-Man tropes just with different characters. A hidden secret of the MCU's success is that to most audiences, these are new stories and new characters they've never seen or even heard of before. So when dealing with Spider-Man (who unlike every other MCU main character has had success movies before this) they're deliberately avoiding all elements in previous Spider-Man movies (which is why I don't think the twist promised in the trailer is true, we've already seen it just last year).

[Prof. Warren]

Hence that fan theory that Bond is apparently some field alias and all the actors are merely different characters taking the same legacy name. Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics runs with that in the recent issues.

As a Bond fan, I've always hated that concept - although I understand why some would want to embrace it.

I feel there's no need to explain. So what if he's roughly the same age forever? I feel it's ok to enjoy each movie and each era on its own merits without figuring out a way the timeline makes sense. It doesn't, it can't, but that isn't what the appeal of Bond hinges on so who cares?

Kevin Feige has often invoked the James Bond films as a model for the MCU. Hence the "<Insert Hero> will return" taglines you had at the end of Iron Man 3, Spider-Man Homecoming, Black Panther, and also with Infinity War (Thanos will return). He said once when asked what were his plans if and when Downey Jr. stepped down, he said they would recast and "Bond it" but obviously Endgame and the trailer for FAR FROM HOME shows that isn't the case. Iron Man is unique since Downey Jr. really did elevate and make that character into his own. Hugh Jackman in Logan is an obvious comparison. Also one actor playing a superhero in 9 films. But Wolverine was always a much bigger deal in comics, cartoons and games than Iron Man was. He had an existence apart from the actor who played him, which I am not sure Iron Man has.

I get the sense that the MCU is, at least for now, going to have its characters age in real time and when an actor out grows a role or wants to move on, they'll retire that character - or turn it into a legacy character. With all the characters at their disposal that they haven't even touched yet, that's a luxury they can afford.

I think it would have been less of an issue if there was some way to bring back Tobey Maguire or even Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man into MCU. In those cases, you had the characters already established and affixed as a friendly neighborhood hero and their own adventures and backstory to refer to as shorthand, though Maguire moreso than Garfield (whose films dealt with weird science and corporate conspiracy elements which is also a departure from the grounded story level). In the case of Tom Holland's Spider-Man, the movies basically depend on the audience's familiarity with other versions of Spider-Man to insert and fill in the blanks as to Uncle Ben and other stuff, while having their Spider-Man operate without any reference to those motivations and themes. So the audience knows that Spider-Man is the friendly neighborhood hero but Homecoming has Tony Stark tell him to be that guy as if this was a new thing for him.

In regards to audiences needing to be familiar with the other films or Spider-Man in other media, so what?

That was one of the smartest decisions of Homecoming. When you have one of the most popular fictional characters in the world, one who has already been featured in five films of very recent vintage, it's stupid to retread this stuff. Everyone knows it. If you're one of the twelve people who haven't watched those films, you can still fully understand Homecoming. But leaving that stuff out means that you're not repeating information that the vast majority of the audience can quote chapter and verse.

I know rehashing the origin and so on can be hard and exposition is always hard to do but you do need to clarify that stuff. To go back to James Bond, after Connery stepped down all Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan had to do was make vague references and statements here and there to previous adventures and that was it, audiences could fill it up. It was the same continuity but different actors and you had broad strokes. But when they did Daniel Craig as an actor, they realized that his unique quality as a performer and their more grounded and human tone needed them to re-establish and re-introduce him from the ground up. The 90s Batman movies also did that. Like after Micheal Keaton stepped down, both Val Kilmer and George Clooney were the same guy but since they were different actors only vaguest references movie-to-movie were kept. In the case of Sony, they recast Spider-Man but change the continuity each time, and yet with Homecoming, to avoid rehashing the story they don't make any reference or allusion to that even if they need audiences to keep that in mind.

If you need help to understand who Spider-Man is in Homecoming, you're an idiot. Most people are not that stupid.

The percentage of viewers who actually need Spider-Man's backstory "clarified" at this point is about zero.

ITSV recognized that with its hilarious origin montages, "Let's begin from the start..." and so on. You had to reintroduce and summarize each Spider-Man and establish them as similar-but-different.

The intros for ITSV were welcome because there were so many Spider-people, most of whom audiences were completely unfamiliar with, and highlighting their similarities and differences was an amusing bit.

There's no such need for that in the MCU with Peter Parker. You can hit the ground running and not worry about the audience being lost as to who he is.

[Frontier]

I get the sense that the MCU is, at least for now, going to have its characters age in real time and when an actor out grows a role or wants to move on, they'll retire that character - or turn it into a legacy character. With all the characters at their disposal that they haven't even touched yet, that's a luxury they can afford.

The best thing about MCU Peter is that they probably won't keep him high school .

[Revolutionary_Jack]

As a Bond fan, I've always hated that concept - although I understand why some would want to embrace it.

I agree. To me it's the kind of thing, like with Blade Runner's whole "Replicant/not replicant" thing, that it works best if it remains subtext. We live in an age of overinterpretation, and I will own to being part of the problem. One thing that happens is that people forget that subtext works best when it's subtext. It's more fun to leave that to the audience to figure and puzzle out, and at heart subtext is a puzzle that isn't meant to be solved or a puzzle without an answer. I can buy that James Bond in those films is the same character when I see them but on other days I can flip back and see them as field alias and I like that freedom to switch back and forth, because the minute the movies commit one way, then you are locked in and you lose that.

I get the sense that the MCU is, at least for now, going to have its characters age in real time and when an actor out grows a role or wants to move on, they'll retire that character - or turn it into a legacy character. With all the characters at their disposal that they haven't even touched yet, that's a luxury they can afford.

Yeah, I mean with Tony Stark off the table, you can now do Reed Richards and have him fill that niche. The whole issue in Marvel where Reed Richards is supposed to be the smartest guy there ever was and will ever be, which at times fences Tony in the MU, is now resolved. You had Tony be for a while the smartest man in that world...now you can have Reed and Doom and you can introduce both of them in the MCU as potential heirs to Iron Man, because when Doom comes in, people are gonna compare his armor to Iron Man's and the US government will panic about Doom being a Stark-level genius head-of-state of a foreign power. Heck this might also lead to the Fantastic Four getting funding, since the US are gonna want to fund the next genius scientist who basically saved the universe. That might also give them concerns about Reed, because who's to say Reed won't take over America, so that could lead to attempts to fence Reed's genius and Reed will be torn between concerns for family and his desire to "Solve Everything".

There's no such need for that in the MCU with Peter Parker. You can hit the ground running and not worry about the audience being lost as to who he is.

In terms of his cameo in Civil War, yeah Spider-Man didn't need introduction for him to work there. That part is fine. But as a lead in his own movies, he has to have his own character, themes, mythos and history. You don't have to redo the origin but you do to have to mention Uncle Ben, since Ben is a big part of Peter and May's relationship. Peter has this, justified, guilt about widowing Aunt May and making her a struggling single parent. If you are doing a May in the 21st Century where she's now younger and working for a living and as such no longer the old struggling woman who really is pushing herself to live out what should have been her golden years all alone...you have to give a sense of how Ben's loss affects and changes her in this new context in order for that to be part of the emotional fabric. You can't skip the hard work all the time.

Right now, Peter's like "I have rich sugar daddy, but now rich sugar daddy's gone". That's cheap, and not faithful to any version of the character.

[Miles To Go]

MCU is 616? Good thing it's likely Beck's lying because BOY will there be confusion with hardcore comic fans

[Prof. Warren]

In terms of his cameo in Civil War, yeah Spider-Man didn't need introduction for him to work there. That part is fine. But as a lead in his own movies, he has to have his own character, themes, mythos and history. You don't have to redo the origin but you do to have to mention Uncle Ben, since Ben is a big part of Peter and May's relationship. Peter has this, justified, guilt about widowing Aunt May and making her a struggling single parent. If you are doing a May in the 21st Century where she's now younger and working for a living and as such no longer the old struggling woman who really is pushing herself to live out what should have been her golden years all alone...you have to give a sense of how Ben's loss affects and changes her in this new context in order for that to be part of the emotional fabric. You can't skip the hard work all the time.

Right now, Peter's like "I have rich sugar daddy, but now rich sugar daddy's gone". That's cheap, and not faithful to any version of the character.

If that were what was happening, it would be cheap but that's not the story that's being told. That's a distorted interpretation of Tony and Peter's relationship. Yes, Tony is rich but it's not as though Peter only loved Tony for the presents he could buy him. Peter genuinely loved and admired Tony. With him gone, it's normal that he'd be mourning him and wondering how to carry on his legacy.

As for Ben, he's been alluded to as has Peter's motivating sense of guilt in relation to him and I think that's enough. Ben was so central to Raimi's and Webb's films that I think it's ok to not pound on that aspect as hard for a third go-round. People know it's there in Peter's background. I've grown weary of every new interpretation of Batman killing the Waynes all over again with that familiar shot of Martha's pearls falling. I mean, we get it. We've seen it. Over and over. I don't think it's necessary to remind viewers of it every time out. So I'm glad that they're not doing that with Spider-Man.

If you want the same old, same old, it's out there. You can re-watch it or re-read it any time you want. At a certain point, you have to give viewers something new and not just always be re-telling the same story.

[Hypestyle]

Hopefully there will be a lab that Tony set aside for Peter where he can work on new costumes and gadgets in private.

[Miles To Go]

If you want the same old, same old, it's out there. You can re-watch it or re-read it any time you want. At a certain point, you have to give viewers something new and not just always be re-telling the same story.

New isn't always necessary.

Shakesphere is often updated, but it remains in every way Shaeksphere.