20 facts you might not know about 'Spider-Man: Far From Home'

While Spider-Man is in the MCU, the movies are not made by Disney. The character is a Sony property, so Sony gets to produce and distribute these films. Sony was not necessarily concerned about Marvel’s plans for their movies as a result. The company announced plans for a sequel slated for 2019, which was a problem for Marvel because this announcement came before Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame came out. Peter, as you likely know, dies after Thanos’ snap in Infinity War.

Sony figured why mess with a good thing? Far From Home, like Homecoming, is co-written by Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna while being once again directed by Jon Watts.

When Far From Home was first announced, it was announced that Michael Keaton would return as Adrian Toomes, aka Vulture. However, Watts later said that neither Toomes nor his daughter, Peter’s love interest in the first film, would be returning.

Once upon a time, Gyllenhaal could have been Peter Parker. Back in the Sam Raimi days, he was in the mix. Of course, he’s a little old to be Spidey, but that allowed him to play the villain in a Spider-Man film instead.

When bandying about Far From Home , Kevin Feige said Marvel wanted to use a villain that had not been in a previous  Spider-Man film. That was a little tough, given that there had been six of them. Mysterio was chosen because he was new to the Spider-Man films but wasn’t exactly an unknown villain in the comics. It was a good time to introduce him, as his manipulative nature would mesh well with a story of Peter being vulnerable while mourning Tony Stark.

In the film, Mysterio, aka Quentin Beck, is a former Stark Industries employee turned bitter by Tony Stark’s lack of respect. This was not the only idea for the character. For some time, they thought about having Mysterio be a Skrull in disguise. In Captain Marvel, it is shown that Skrulls are capable of shape-shifting to hide as humans.

In the post-credits scene, it is revealed that Nick Fury and Maria Hill were actually the Skrulls Talos and Soren pretending to be them. To make this reveal possible, Watts used footage of Samuel L. Jackson and Colbie Smulders, shot for the beginning of the movie but cut. Since Smulders did not shoot new footage for this post-credits scene, she learned about the twist from Feige just before the film was released.

Not everybody enjoys the whole comic-book movie experience (see: Hugo Weaving as Red Skull). Gyllenhaal was a different story. He loved wearing the Mysterio outfit and fought to wear it as much as possible in the film. In one scene, you can see Mysterio in civilian attire spying on Peter Parker in Venice, though.

The Stark tech glasses that are bequeathed to Peter come with an A.I. called E.D.I.T.H. The voice of E.D.I.T.H. is provided by Dawn Michelle King. King is not an actor by trade. She’s an assistant editor that has worked on many Marvel films, including Far From Home.

One of the favorite elements of Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy was Simmons’ turn as J. Jonah Jameson, editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle newspaper. Well, in a surprise appearance, Simmons returns as Jameson in Far From Home. Now, he is styled as a conspiracy theory quasi-journalist on the internet. By returning as Jameson, Simmons became the first (though, of course, not the last) actor from a non-MCU movie to reprise their role in the MCU.

Watts really wanted Simmons back as J. Jonah Jameson and did not consider casting anybody else. Simmons reached out to Raimi to see if he was OK with it, and he was, so Simmons was down. What he wasn’t down with, though, was seeing Jameson become the radicalized online version of the character. The actor told Collider he did not see “eye to eye” with Watts on this new version of Jameson, but he filmed it anyway (and then returned for the sequel).

Sometimes a big movie, especially of the superhero ilk, will try to keep the title under wraps. However, Tom Holland revealed the title of Far From Home before shooting started. Now, this wasn’t the notably loose-lipped Holland going rogue or another instance of Sony not caring about Marvel’s plans. It was Feige’s idea, figuring it would probably leak anyway. While filming, the movie used the working titles “Fall of George” and “Bosco” to try and keep eyes away from production. We assume those are both Seinfeld references.

Peter Parker’s birthday, as shown on his passport, is August 10. That makes sense, as the character of Spider-man first appeared in “Amazing Fantasy #15,” a Marvel comic that came out on August 10, 1962.

A lot of Marvel films are just shot at their massive studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Far From Home, though, lived up to its title. The movie was shot on location in England, Italy, and Czechia. They also shot in New York City and Newark, New Jersey.

The Netherlands is known for its tulips (there was even a fever for them, as Alicia Vikander knows), and Peter finds himself in a Dutch tulip field in Far From Home. However, for all the movie’s location shootings, that one was not done on-site. They filmed a field in Britain and then digitally filled it with roughly two million tulips.

Far From Home did not only come in the wake of the in-universe death of Tony Stark. It also came after the real-world death of Stan Lee. This is the first Marvel movie that did not feature a cameo from the Marvel kingpin after a few films that featured Lee in posthumous appearances.

How do you release a trailer for a movie about a character who is going to die and be resurrected without spoiling that the character is going to die and be resurrected? That was the issue for Sony when it came to crafting a trailer for Far From Home. For their first trailer, they avoided any reference to Infinity War or Endgame, just focusing on the world of their Spider-Man movies. That worked well enough, but they also created a second trailer that opened with Holland giving a spoiler warning before the action of the trailer began.

Following up Endgame was always going to be tricky. That was a huge movie event that also became the highest-grossing movie ever. Far From Home couldn’t quite live up to that, but it did just fine. The film made $390.5 million domestically and $1.131 billion domestically. It finished as the fourth-highest-grossing movie of 2019. However, it became the first Spider-Man movie to make a billion dollars worldwide and the highest-grossing Sony film ever.

This film about teenagers resonated with, well, teenagers. Far From Home went three-for-three at the Teen Choice Awards, with the film, Holland, and Zendaya all winning. Holland and Zendaya also won at the People’s Choice Awards, while Holland also won a Kids’ Choice Award (Zendaya was nominated). Weirdly, J.B. Smoove won Best Supporting Actor at some British event called the National Film & TV Awards.

Simmons was just the beginning. Sommers, McKenna, and Watts returned for 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third film starring Holland as Spider-Man. This film didn’t just feature Simmons as Jameson but brought back several other actors from both Raimi and Marc Webb’s Spider-Man films. Maguire and Andrew Garfield even reprised their Peter Parker roles. No Way Home hit at a time when the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic allowed people to feel willing to go to the theaters, and the movie ended up bringing in $1.920 billion, making it the highest-grossing film of 2019 and one of the 10 highest-grossing movies ever.