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

[Snoop Dogg]

Peter is not Tony's sidekick because you can't be someone's sidekick when you've worked with them like three times and among larger groups. It was idol worship that evolved into mentorship that evolved into a father/son dynamic. This has been Spider-Man with Merriam-Webster. Wait, was Peter Captain Stacy's sidekick?

[Punisher007]

Tony is a mentor/surrogate father figure to Peter in the MCU, but Peter is not his sidekick. Also in regards to Uncle Ben, I look at it like I look at Batman's parents. Everyone and their grandmas know who they were and why they're important to Bruce, so EVERY movie doesn't need to beat the audience over the head with it, it's been covered a lot already. Same with Uncle Ben for Peter imo.

[Mistah K88]

In terms of "been there, done that" I often wonder why things like Peter's romantic life gets a pass where people scoff at the idea of using major villains. People will say that they don't want to see Octavius in movies again as he was in a movie over a decade ago but be A-OK with "MJ". Surely they wouldn't hit the same beats with the villains just like they are not hitting the same beats with the supporting cast.

[Snoop Dogg]

I want MCU Norman and Otto too, but we've got a lot of time for that and I wanna see other guys get their shot. I wanna see Kraven pounce on thicc Tom Holland.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Peter is not Tony's sidekick because you can't be someone's sidekick when you've worked with them like three times and among larger groups.

Proportionately, one movie is equal to multiple stories, runs, and so on. In the MCU, Tom Holland has been in five movies, three of them event movies, Tony Stark is in his solo movie, and Peter's supporting cast also includes Tony's man friday, Happy Hogan. Three by the way is bigger than the number of movies that featured Batman and Robin as a team (the two schumacher movies basically).

Doctor Strange even had that joke in IW where he referred to Peter as "Tony's ward".

And in any case, many articles online have pointed this out. Including James Whitbrook here:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/i-have-conce...n-h-1795940461

This has been Spider-Man with Merriam-Webster.

People who equivocate do tend to use a lot of five dollar sentences and so on. Spider-Man in the MCU is Tony's sidekick. He is shown in the same way as Robin is shown vis-a-vis Batman in cartoons and other stories. People in real life call him a sidekick. If people own up to it and defend that on its own terms then it would be better when what people are doing now is having things both ways.

In terms of "been there, done that" I often wonder why things like Peter's romantic life gets a pass where people scoff at the idea of using major villains.

Because it's not the same thing. A villain in a superhero story is a dynamic audiovisual experience. Choosing the villain by itself designates the kind of action, setpieces, props, and so on you are gonna use in the story. The supporting cast by themselves don't bring a lot of visual elements. They are primarily there to maintain consistency, characterization, and provide the subplots that delivers the broader emotional experience of the project. So the supporting cast can stay the same but the villains have to change otherwise you are gonna get samey stuff. The worst example is Superman, where the only bad guys he ever fights are Luthor or Zod. Snyder then introduced Doomsday as a clone of Zod made by Luthor, because why not. As such all his movies tend to have same beats and moments. Luthor's gonna monologue with kryptonite, Superman fights Evil Kryptonians and stuff like that. There's no variety, no new visual elements and new action scenes that shows a different aspect of Superman and so on.

That's why stuff like not doing Jameson, Robbie, or addressing Uncle Ben, doesn't work. They are part of Spider-Man's story and provide the unique texture to his stories and are the reasons why a Spider-Man story doesn't look and feel like any other hero's. They also can't be replaced or overwritten.

[Snoop Dogg]

Proportionately, the characters have never had a sustained partnership where they work together but one is clearly the authority figure, but instead have been in three conflicts together as part of larger teams. To be a sidekick, you have to actually accompany the main authority figure, and not have most of your adventures independently aside from very specific circumstances. Classical Robins do not do things without Batman. People can attack the relationship and influence of Tony on Peter's separate existence without dramatically acting like they're attached to the hip and Spider-Man's presumably long MCU tenure didn't start like yesterday.

[Punisher007]

Hey I've been wanting Felicia in a Spidey film for a LONG time (proper Felicia, not that tease that we got in TASM 2). So it doesn't HAVE to be MJ.

But like others have said, villains are a different matter. It's why most James Bond films have one and done villains, but the same core supporting cast continues throughout all of them (alongside recurring characters like Bond's CIA friend Felix Leiter).

Villains provide the visual, audio, and thematic challenge to the hero. They HAVE to change every so often just to add some new and different things and avoid things getting stale. The LI's and supporting cast are there usually to provide a sense of familiarity/make it seem like a progressing world and to anchor the hero.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Hey I've been wanting Felicia in a Spidey film for a LONG time (proper Felicia, not that tease that we got in TASM 2). So it doesn't HAVE to be MJ.

You can't do Felicia Hardy with a teenage Spider-Man. Bendis showed that in USM where rather than make Felicia a teenage he made her an older woman and had his jokes while Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat actually filled the function and dynamic that Felicia originally i.e. a love interest who could also be his field partner who's compatible with Spider-Man but not as much with Peter. Now that the Fox deal happened, you can bring Kitty Pryde, Iceman, and heck Johnny Storm to Midtown and that would allow them to do "Amazing Friends" complete with May houserooming them. It would be awesome. I would love for an adaptation of The Owl/Octopus War myself though.

But like others have said, villains are a different matter. It's why most James Bond films have one and done villains, but the same core supporting cast continues throughout all of them (alongside recurring characters like Bond's CIA friend Felix Leiter).

Well Bond does cycle through an assortment of disposable warm bodies. But obviously Spider-man isn't that character. He's a forever-guy and having him go new girl every film makes him come across as too douchey (this was a problem in Spider-Man 3 where they introduced Gwen after MJ, this after two movies making Peter and MJ the biggest romance in movies since DiCaprio and Winslet), and as Quesada himself said, "Peter Parker playing the field is out of character". And Marvel/Disney themselves don't like that, since Iron Man who is supposed to be a James Bond guy actually settled down with one girl to, and that was something Downey Jr. pushed for himself. And especially after the whole Me Too thing and so on (man I wonder if that's a factor in why they've taken time to put a new Bond movie because if there was ever a fictional character who'd be Me'Too'd if he existed it's that guy, and Me Too has had this huge effect already). The producer of Black Panther himself said that Iron Man's shtick in the first half of IM-1 wouldn't fly today (https://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/bl...sw-1201938017/).

But agree with the rest. In a superhero story, the villains have to provide new action, new fights, and basically new skills for the hero to show off. Like Mysterio himself as a villain...which I know the promotion is telling us otherwise but let's be real...introduces so many new stuff. And eventually they will do the Sinister Six and that's a story where Spider-Man fights half his rogues gallery all by himself and wins. That's not been done before. Like Nolan adapted parts of Knightfall for the third Dark Knight movie but without Bane blowing up Arkham and unleashing every bad guy and supervillain Batman locked up, and having him fight them all in a short stretch of time...you end up missing up something.

[Mistah K88]

Because it's not the same thing. A villain in a superhero story is a dynamic audiovisual experience. Choosing the villain by itself designates the kind of action, setpieces, props, and so on you are gonna use in the story. The supporting cast by themselves don't bring a lot of visual elements. They are primarily there to maintain consistency, characterization, and provide the subplots that delivers the broader emotional experience of the project. So the supporting cast can stay the same but the villains have to change otherwise you are gonna get samey stuff. The worst example is Superman, where the only bad guys he ever fights are Luthor or Zod. Snyder then introduced Doomsday as a clone of Zod made by Luthor, because why not. As such all his movies tend to have same beats and moments. Luthor's gonna monologue with kryptonite, Superman fights Evil Kryptonians and stuff like that. There's no variety, no new visual elements and new action scenes that shows a different aspect of Superman and so on.

That's why stuff like not doing Jameson, Robbie, or addressing Uncle Ben, doesn't work. They are part of Spider-Man's story and provide the unique texture to his stories and are the reasons why a Spider-Man story doesn't look and feel like any other hero's. They also can't be replaced or overwritten.

To be fair, I wanted to use Jameson next as an example of "it's been done already, we have to be different for the sake of being different". When it comes to Norman Osborn, yeah, they wouldn't be able to use him as they already did one of his main shticks with Vulture already. However, that said with them doing MJ and Gwen already, I'm surprised they decided to go with the "one and only" route again... Not saying we need the tackiness of Peter having a new squeeze every movie, but I'm surprised MJ was used (even if she isn't the classic version) over characters like Debra Whitman, Carlie Cooper, etc...is it because those characters and ultimately their romances didn't matter?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

To be fair, I wanted to use Jameson next as an example of "it's been done already, we have to be different for the sake of being different".

The hook of the MCU Spider-man was his ties to Tony Stark and the Avengers and teaming him up, that has come at the expense of longtime Spider-Man supporting characters. Now Happy Hogan is annexed to Peter's world now. I hope they kill him off next, so he can be a kind of George Stacy 616 character.

When it comes to Norman Osborn, yeah, they wouldn't be able to use him as they already did one of his main shticks with Vulture already.

I guessed at one point they were going to go Dark Reign and use the Marvel-wide version of Osborn as a villain. But that seems unlikely now. Like without the original Avengers, without Tony Stark, Dark Reign Osborn doesn't work. And if you have FF now, you have to set Doom up as the Marvel-wide bad guy. And having two would suck.

There are ways you can bring Norman Osborn into the MCU. Like simply have Osborn be some crooked financier -- a Gekko or Belfort or Madoff type. Introduce Harry Lyman (obviously he changed his name after Norman's disgrace) as Liz Toomes' new boyfriend, and so on. There will be references to Norman apparently dying in a mysterious accident. There's this new villain starting a supervillain gang war...it can be the Vulture/Goblin war you know. There's an element of mystery and then it turns out that Norman has been alive all along. And guess what...simply bring Dafoe back as Goblin. It would be awesome. Say he died in 2002, the year of Spider-Man 1. This would be true to the character's comics history, Norman as a supervillain gangster is a thing in the L-D Era, in Superior Spider-Man, and in Spectacular Spider-Man, as is him coming back from the death and so on.

However, that said with them doing MJ and Gwen already, I'm surprised they decided to go with the "one and only" route again... Not saying we need the tackiness of Peter having a new squeeze every movie, but I'm surprised MJ was used (even if she isn't the classic version) over characters like Debra Whitman, Carlie Cooper, etc...is it because those characters and ultimately their romances didn't matter?

I am wondering what the point was myself. Because you introduced Ganke in these movies as Peter's friend/sidekick. After Tony Stark, that's the main relationship Peter has in these MCU movies. The whole reason why romance is such a big part of Spider-Man is that he doesn't' have any close male friends and his girlfriends always take priority over any friendships. That's the case in the Raimi movies, in the classic comics, in USM and even the Garfield movies got that. Obviously MJ Michelle Jones isn't going to be closer to Peter than Ganke is, so it will be hard for her to come into her own.

[Frontier]

Peter is not Tony's sidekick because you can't be someone's sidekick when you've worked with them like three times and among larger groups. It was idol worship that evolved into mentorship that evolved into a father/son dynamic. This has been Spider-Man with Merriam-Webster. Wait, was Peter Captain Stacy's sidekick?

I don't think it's fair to compare Captain Stacy to Iron Man.

The power dynamic is completely different because Iron Man is an established Superhero guiding Peter Parker as Spider-Man while Captain Stacy was a police correspondent who occasionally gave an established Spider-Man advice.

Captain Stacy didn't give Peter his classic suit, gear, or took away said suit and gear and he definitely never had to save Spidey like Iron Man did in Homecoming and the start of Infinity War.

I want MCU Norman and Otto too, but we've got a lot of time for that and I wanna see other guys get their shot. I wanna see Kraven pounce on thicc Tom Holland.

I want Kraven too. He's the only major Lee/Ditko villain they haven't done yet (especially if Chameleon is in this movie).

I hope Sony trying to do a Kraven movie doesn't prevent him from being used in the MCU.

Proportionately, the characters have never had a sustained partnership where they work together but one is clearly the authority figure, but instead have been in three conflicts together as part of larger teams. To be a sidekick, you have to actually accompany the main authority figure, and not have most of your adventures independently aside from very specific circumstances. Classical Robins do not do things without Batman. People can attack the relationship and influence of Tony on Peter's separate existence without dramatically acting like they're attached to the hip and Spider-Man's presumably long MCU tenure didn't start like yesterday.

Modern Robins do. Just look at Tim and Damian.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I want Kraven too. He's the only major Lee/Ditko villain they haven't done yet (especially if Chameleon is in this movie).

Chameleon, Scorpion, Kraven, and the Spider-Slayers are the only ones left to be introduced on-screen. Post-Ditko rogues Rhino, Shocker, and Venom have also appeared on-screen in some form with Venom heading his own wildly successful spinoff. Norman Osborn has been recast twice, while Harry Goblin is the only villain to do double duty in two separate reboots of Spider-Man (why I don't know). Still to come: Hammerhead, Tombstone (Conway), The Spot (Mantlo/Milgrom), The Hobgoblin (which might work if you cast silver-haired George Clooney as silver-haired Roderick Kingsley), Morlun (JMS), Mister Negative and Screwball (Dan Slott). I think given the grounded nature of the MCU Spider-Man and basically the blue-collar crook motif of the Vulture, you can maybe introduce the Superior Foes now, that can work with what they have.

The problem with Kraven is that the major story everyone wants to do is Kraven's Last Hunt. And you need an older Spider-Man to do that. As many people point out, from JMD downwards, that story doesn't really work without the marriage to provide it the emotional texture. It's to the marriage what Master Planner is to the college era, a story that is about the fact that the hero has grown up and crossed a threshold. Steve Ditko himself said that the Master Planner was about Peter going to college. It's his valedictory speech. The whole point is that Kraven sees Spider-Man as this great totemic figure and an animal who can be hunted down, absorbed, and surpassed. But Spider-Man is Peter Parker the man, the human being. It's also a story that doesn't work as Kraven's first outing with Spider-Man. Ideally to do it, you need to introduce Kraven as a side-character first like say introduce him as one of the Sinister Six along with a slew, and then have him stew and then cut years later where an older dying Kraven shows up.

Maybe they can tap into KLH via HUNTED. Hunted is basically an attempt to channel the emotions and feelings of KLH with a younger unmarried (albeit still with MJ in a deeply committed relationship) Spider-Man, and it's maybe a more cinematic event story, with multiple animal themed villains under a glass dome, it's got Arcade and Taskmaster so you can introduce a couple of Marvel wide villains and go "shared-universe". Hunted for instance can work as Kraven's first outing with Spider-Man. It introduces Kraven as a major league bad guy. And it's a great story to introduce in a flash a bunch of animal themed bad guys into the MCU. And Hunted is also one with a lot of comedic and funny bits which the original KLH by necessity doesn't have. If you have Arcade, then a cool thing to do would be making Juggernaut his enforcer. And having Spider-Man fight Juggernaut because there's absolutely no point doing Spider-Man in a shared universe if he doesn't battle Juggernaut or Firelord but introducing Juggernaut is easier than doing Firelord and it's a battle that feels less like jobbing. Juggernaut was introduced pretty succinctly in the Deadpool sequel and everyone in the audience instantly got him and so on. If MCU Spider-Man doesn't fight Juggernaut it would be like doing a Justice League movie as a response to the Avengers and failing to put on-screen Darkseid before Thanos...which you know actually happened and look what it got them.

[Frontier]

Chameleon, Scorpion, Kraven, and the Spider-Slayers are the only ones left to be introduced on-screen.

Gargan was in Homecoming. I think it's inevitable we'll see him in a Scorpion suit at some point.

There's a "Dimitri" in Far From Home and I think Watts has addressed rumors over whether Chameleon is in it.

[Prof. Warren]

Doctor Strange even had that joke in IW where he referred to Peter as "Tony's ward".

It is, as you say, a "joke." As in "not serious."

And in any case, many articles online have pointed this out. Including James Whitbrook here:

Citing some dipshit from io9 agreeing with your "concerns" is worth nothing if you're trying to argue a point.

People who equivocate do tend to use a lot of five dollar sentences and so on.

And people who are desperate to appear intellectual frequently cite Shakespeare.

Spider-Man in the MCU is Tony's sidekick.

He is not. I don't know if you're deliberately dense or just not capable of successfully processing information but Peter is not, in any way, Tony's "sidekick."

Peter was already active as a superhero when Tony approached him. It's why Tony approached him - because he saw videos of Peter in action.

Peter had already taken on the Spider-Man identity and was using his powers for good.

As has been pointed out, there's a whole backstory to Peter becoming a hero that predates him ever meeting Tony. We just don't need a whole movie about it because there's already been two movies that cover the same basic information.

Is there a whole backstory to Robin that shows him in action as Robin before meeting Batman? No. Robin is 100% Batman's sidekick. He becomes a superhero when Batman reveals his secret to him and brings him into the fold. Peter is his own man doing his own thing well before Tony enters the picture.

Peter in Homecoming operates on his own. He doesn't go on missions that Tony assigns him, he doesn't accompany Tony on nightly patrols of the city, he is completely on his own. Tony's involvement amounts to cleaning up messes that occur due to Peter's eagerness and inexperience.

When Peter screws up so bad that Tony thinks he shouldn't continue to keep using his tech, his solution isn't to take him under his wing and give him proper supervision and make sure he only fights at his side in order to keep a closer eye on him, his solution is to take his stuff back and walk away, assuming that Peter will call it a day.

The fact that Peter doesn't shirk his responsibility and still acts as Spider-Man is what proves to Tony that Peter has what it takes to be an Avenger.

Peter says no and is content to continue being a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man".

That he gets pulled into a cosmic adventure in IW and EG doesn't negate that decision. In comics, Spidey is regularly pulled into bigger conflicts.

He is shown in the same way as Robin is shown vis-a-vis Batman in cartoons and other stories.

Not at all. Unless you think that any story where there is an adult and a teenager is automatically following in the mold of Batman and Robin.

People in real life call him a sidekick.

But they don't. Doctor Strange asking Tony if some young kid is his ward is a snarky dig at Tony, not asking whether Peter is Tony's "sidekick."

If people own up to it and defend that on its own terms then it would be better when what people are doing now is having things both ways.

You continually prove that you're not willing to, or not able to, deal in facts. You're insisting on an interpretation of Tony and Peter's relationship that is false.

On the upside, at least it seems you've finally learned not to refer to Tony as Peter's "sugar daddy."

Because it's not the same thing. A villain in a superhero story is a dynamic audiovisual experience. Choosing the villain by itself designates the kind of action, setpieces, props, and so on you are gonna use in the story. The supporting cast by themselves don't bring a lot of visual elements. They are primarily there to maintain consistency, characterization, and provide the subplots that delivers the broader emotional experience of the project. So the supporting cast can stay the same but the villains have to change otherwise you are gonna get samey stuff. The worst example is Superman, where the only bad guys he ever fights are Luthor or Zod. Snyder then introduced Doomsday as a clone of Zod made by Luthor, because why not. As such all his movies tend to have same beats and moments. Luthor's gonna monologue with kryptonite, Superman fights Evil Kryptonians and stuff like that. There's no variety, no new visual elements and new action scenes that shows a different aspect of Superman and so on.

That's why stuff like not doing Jameson, Robbie, or addressing Uncle Ben, doesn't work. They are part of Spider-Man's story and provide the unique texture to his stories and are the reasons why a Spider-Man story doesn't look and feel like any other hero's. They also can't be replaced or overwritten.

But...they can. Your insistence that something can't be done or doesn't work looks pretty stupid in the face of actual proof that it can be done and it does work.

You want to dictate rules of what people telling Spider-Man stories can and can't do but all it comes down to is that you're a fan with opinions.

You not liking the direction that the MCU Spider-Man have taken is a matter of your own personal preference. And that's fine. But the success of the films says that not everyone shares your outlook. Something not working for you is not proof that something doesn't work. That's a point that some fans with possessive attitudes about characters tend to get confused by.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

And people who are desperate to appear intellectual frequently cite Shakespeare.

I also cited James Bond you know.