ABOUT MOVIE
Spider-Man: Far From Home is a 2019 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man, co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It is the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and the twenty-third film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is directed by Jon Watts, written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, and stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, alongside Samuel L. Jackson, Zendaya, Cobie Smulders, Jon Favreau, J. B. Smoove, Jacob Batalon, Martin Starr, Marisa Tomei, and Jake Gyllenhaal. In Spider-Man: Far From Home, Parker is recruited by Nick Fury and Mysterio to face the Elementals while he is on a school trip to Europe.
Discussions for a sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming began by October 2016, and the project was confirmed later that year. Holland, Watts, and the writers were all set to return by the end of 2017. In 2018, Jackson and Gyllenhaal joined the cast as Fury and Mysterio, respectively. Holland revealed the sequel's title ahead of filming, which began in July 2018 and took place in England, the Czech Republic, Italy, and the New York metropolitan area. Production wrapped in October 2018. The film's marketing campaign was the most expensive for a film ever and attempted to avoid revealing spoilers for Avengers: Endgame prior to that film's April 2019 release.
Spider-Man: Far From Home premiered in Hollywood on June 26, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on July 2. The film received positive reviews for its humor, visual effects, and performances (particularly those of Holland and Gyllenhaal). It grossed over $1.1 billion worldwide, making it the first Spider-Man film to pass the billion-dollar mark, Sony Pictures' highest-grossing film ever, and the third-highest-grossing film of 2019. A sequel is scheduled for release on July 16, 2021.
Plot[edit]
In Ixtenco, Mexico, Nick Fury and Maria Hill investigate an unnatural storm and encounter the Earth Elemental. Quentin Beck, a super-powered individual, arrives to fight the creature. A week later, in New York City, the Midtown School of Science and Technology completes its academic year which was restarted to accommodate the students who disappeared during the five-year period known as "the Blip". They had reappeared eight months earlier thanks to the actions of the Avengers. The school organizes a two-week summer field trip to Europe, where Peter Parker—still mourning the death of his mentor and father figure Tony Stark[N 1]—plans to confess his growing feelings for classmate MJ. Happy Hogan informs Parker that Fury intends to contact him, but Parker ignores the call.
Parker and his classmates travel to Venice, Italy, where the Water Elemental attacks. Parker helps protect his classmates while Beck arrives and destroys the creature. Fury meets with Parker and gives him Stark's glasses, which were meant for his successor. The glasses are equipped with the artificial intelligence E.D.I.T.H., which has access to Stark Industries' databases and commands a large orbital weapons supply. Beck claims to hail from an alternate reality within the Multiverse, where the Elementals killed his family. He now predicts that the Fire Elemental will appear in Prague. Parker declines Fury's invitation to join Beck's fight against the Elementals and returns to his class trip.
Fury secretly changes the school trip's itinerary so Parker will be directed to Prague, and there Parker is forced to help fight the Fire Elemental to again protect his friends. Beck is able to destroy the Fire Elemental with Parker's help. Fury and Hill invite Parker and Beck to Berlin to discuss the formation of a new superhero team, but Parker decides that Beck should go alone and bequeaths him the E.D.I.T.H. glasses. In actuality, Beck is secretly a former holographic-illusions specialist at Stark Industries who was fired for his unstable nature. He now leads a team of disgruntled ex-Stark employees, using advanced projector drones to simulate the Elemental attacks and masquerade as a hero; their plan was to gain access to E.D.I.T.H. so they could use the orbital weapons system's drones to increase the scale of their illusions.
MJ deduces Parker is Spider-Man. They discover that a piece of debris she retrieved during the carnival battle is a projector that presents a simulation of the Air Elemental, leading the two to realize Beck is a fraud. Parker travels to Berlin to meet with Fury, but is actually in one of Beck's illusions and accidentally reveals that some of his friends know about Beck's plan. Distracted by the illusion, Parker is hit by a train and carried away to the Netherlands. From there Parker contacts Hogan, who flies them to London where his classmates are now on their way home. In London, Beck uses E.D.I.T.H. to orchestrate his biggest illusion yet, a fusion of all four Elementals, as a cover to kill Parker's friends. Parker is able to disrupt the illusion, so Beck fully reveals the drones to attack him. Parker defeats Beck, regaining control of E.D.I.T.H. to call off the drone attacks. Beck dies from wounds sustained from misfired drone gunshots. An assistant of Beck's escapes with data from the drones. After returning to New York City, Parker begins a relationship with MJ.
In a mid-credits scene, J. Jonah Jameson of TheDailyBugle.net broadcasts doctored footage of the London incident in which Beck frames Spider-Man for the drone attack and his death, before exposing Spider-Man's secret identity to the world. In a post-credits scene, Fury and Hill are revealed to be the Skrulls Talos and Soren in disguise, under orders from the real Fury who is seen commanding a Skrull spaceship.
Cast[edit]
- Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man:
A high-school junior and Avenger who received spider-like abilities after being bitten by a radioactive spider.[3] Director Jon Watts said that, in contrast to Spider-Man: Homecoming in which Parker longs for the responsibilities of an adult, in Far From Home he wants to hang onto his youth, saying, "This film is about the world telling him, 'It's time for you to step up and grow up, kid,' and he's saying, 'But I still want to be a kid and go on vacation.'"[4] - Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury:
The former director of S.H.I.E.L.D.,[5] who is now in a situation where he does not have the level of control he is used to having.[6] Watts describes Fury's relationship with Parker as "the mean new stepdad", contrasting his role with Tony Stark's "supportive cool uncle" in Homecoming, saying, "Fury sees Peter Parker as an asset that he needs who is too preoccupied with a bunch of high school problems." Watts originally pitched Fury as a mentor to Parker in Homecoming.[7] - Zendaya as MJ: Parker's classmate and love interest.[8] Her full name, Michelle Jones, is not given in the film.[9][10]
- Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill: A former high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who works closely with Nick Fury.[5]
- Jon Favreau as Harold "Happy" Hogan:
The head of security for Stark Industries and former driver and bodyguard of Tony Stark who looks after Parker.[11] Watts noted Happy would be used to explore the idea of "trying to find your place in the world if the center of your world is gone" given his close friendship to Stark.[12] - J. B. Smoove as Julius Dell:
Parker's teacher and a chaperone on his school trip to Europe. The role was written for Smoove after the writers and director enjoyed his performance alongside Holland in an Audi commercial short film produced to promote Homecoming.[13][14] - Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds: Parker's best friend.[15][16][17]
- Martin Starr as Roger Harrington: Parker's academic decathlon teacher and a chaperone on his school trip to Europe.[18][13]
- Marisa Tomei as May Parker: Parker's aunt who is aware of his secret identity and wants him to be Spider-Man more so he can help with charitable causes.[19][20][13]
- Jake Gyllenhaal as Quentin Beck / Mysterio:
A former Stark Industries employee and holographic-illusions specialist who masquerades as a superhero from Earth-833 in the Multiverse. He is recruited by Nick Fury to help Spider-Man stop the Elementals.[21][12][22] Gyllenhaal shared ideas with the writers regarding the character's personality, and was drawn to the idea that Beck is "manipulating everyone's love of superheroes and that need for heroes". Gyllenhaal wanted to play the character's fake backstory as realistically as possible.[23] Regarding Beck's relationship with Parker, Watts says that "If Tony Stark was sort of the mentor in the previous films, we thought it would be interesting to play Mysterio as almost like the cool uncle."[4] Watts was excited to have Beck team with Fury and Parker as it introduced the character to the MCU "in a way that people weren't expecting."[6]
Tony Revolori and Angourie Rice reprise their roles from Homecoming as Parker's classmates Eugene "Flash" Thompson, Parker's rival,[24] and Betty Brant, Ned's off-and-on girlfriend.[13][25] Peter Billingsley reprises his Iron Man (2008) role of scientist William Ginter Riva, who now works with Beck.[26] J. K. Simmons appears as J. Jonah Jameson in the mid-credits scene,[27] marking the first time a character has been portrayed in the MCU by the same actor who previously played a non-MCU incarnation of the character after Simmons had portrayed Jameson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film trilogy.[28] Ben Mendelsohn and Sharon Blynn make uncredited cameo appearances in the post-credits scene as the Skrulls Talos and Soren, reprising their roles from Captain Marvel (2019);[27] this scene reveals that they have been posing as Fury and Hill during the film, using deleted footage of Jackson and Smulders originally intended for the opening scene. Smulders learned about the twist from producer Kevin Feige shortly before the film's release.[29]
Additionally, Numan Acar portrays Fury's associate Dimitri,[30][31] and Remy Hii plays Brad Davis, a popular student who Parker sees as competition for MJ's affection.[32][33] Zach Barack, the first openly transgender actor in the MCU, portrays one of Parker's new classmates, Zach.[34][35][36] Dawn Michelle King, an assistant editor on many MCU films including Far From Home, provides the voice for the artificial intelligence E.D.I.T.H.[37] Jeff Bridges and Robert Downey Jr. appear as Obadiah Stane and Stark through the use of archival footage from Iron Man and Captain America: Civil War (2016), respectively.[26][38] Images from previous MCU films of Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, and Paul Bettany as Stark, Steve Rogers / Captain America, Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, and Vision, respectively, are used in the film's opening "in memoriam" segment.[39][40] The four Elementals are modeled after different Spider-Man villains from Marvel comic books: Hydro-Man, Molten Man, Sandman, and Cyclone.[41][42][43][44]
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
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In June 2016, Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman stated that Sony and Marvel Studios were committed to making future Spider-Man films after Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).[45] The following month, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said if additional films were made, the company had an early idea to follow the model of the Harry Potter film series, and have the plot of each film cover a new school year,[46] with a second film intended to take place during Parker's junior year of high school.[47] By October 2016, discussions had begun for a second film, including which villain would be featured, according to Spider-Man actor Tom Holland, who was signed for two more Spider-Man films after Homecoming.[48][49] In December, after the successful release of the first Homecoming trailer, Sony slated a sequel to the film for July 5, 2019.[50] Sony's insistence that the sequel be released in 2019 complicated Marvel's preference for secrecy regarding their plans for Spider-Man in this film and their other MCU films, since the character would die at the end of Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and would not be resurrected before Avengers: Endgame in April 2019 by which time marketing for this film would have already begun.[51]
After being able to include Iron Man for Homecoming, Sony was revealed in June 2017 to have the use of another Marvel Studios-controlled character for the sequel.[52] Feige stated that Marvel and Sony were "just starting to solidify our plans" for the film, and felt Spider-Man's appearances in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame would "launch him off into a very new cinematic universe at that point", similar to how Captain America: Civil War (2016) "informed everything in Homecoming".[53] Marvel and Sony both wanted Homecoming director Jon Watts returning for the sequel, with Feige saying "that's the intention for sure", and Watts said he was signed for another Spider-Man film.[54] Feige said the sequel would have a subtitle like Homecoming, and would not feature "2" in the title. He added that filming was expected to begin in April or May 2018.[55] As with Homecoming, Feige said the film's villain would be one that had not yet been seen in film.[56] By July 2017, Watts was in negotiations with the studios regarding his return for the sequel,[3] and Marisa Tomei expressed interest in returning as Aunt May from the previous films.[57]
Pascal said the film would begin "a few minutes" after the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame.[58] A specific amount of time is not stated in the film, but Watts felt it was "almost immediately" after Endgame.[12] Given this, Watts felt this posed "a fun creative challenge" for the Far From Home team, allowing them to deal with many of the unanswered questions from Endgame. Watts added they looked to "make a movie that's in that world and deals with those stories but is also still [a] fun Spider-Man movie". For example, Ned, MJ, and Flash all turned to dust during the events of Infinity War along with Parker, while some of his classmates did not and are now five years older due to the events of Endgame. Watts compared this dynamic to the film Flight of the Navigator (1986), calling the situation "really weird ... but ... also something you can have a lot of fun with".[6]
Pre-production[edit]
At the end of August 2017, as the film was entering pre-production,[55] Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers were in final negotiations to return from Homecoming to write the sequel.[59] In early October, Jacob Batalon confirmed he would reprise his role of Ned in the sequel.[15] Feige confirmed that Watts was returning to direct the sequel in December.[60] By February 2018, Zendaya was slated to return for the film, reprising her role as Michelle / MJ.[8] Location scouting for the film began at the end of the month, as did the pre-visualisation process for the creative team to begin planning action sequences and visual effects for the film.[61] By late April, Feige stated that filming was scheduled to begin in early July 2018, and would primarily occur in London. This was a change from the first film, which was mostly produced in Atlanta. Feige explained that one of the reasons behind this change in location was because a majority of the sequel would be spent around the world, outside New York City.[62]
A month later, Jake Gyllenhaal entered negotiations to play Mysterio, while Tomei and Michael Keaton were confirmed to reprise their respective roles of May and Adrian Toomes / Vulture; Gyllenhaal's casting was confirmed a month later,[63] but Watts later stated that Keaton and Laura Harrier would not be appearing in the sequel.[12] Also in May, McKenna and Sommers were also confirmed as the film's screenwriters.[19][64] They began working on the film from a set of notes that Marvel had put together based on different influences and story ideas. This included the directive that the film would be releasing shortly after Endgame and would need to deal with the death of Stark due to the relationship between that character and Spider-Man that previous films had established. The film also needed to deal with the aftereffects of "the Blip", the five-year period between Infinity War and Endgame where half of all life disappeared. Mysterio was chosen to be the film's villain because he is one of Spider-Man's iconic villains that had yet to be featured in a film, and because his history of deception in the comics lent itself to a character who could take advantage of a Spider-Man that is mourning the death of Stark. This also allowed the writers to explore relevant modern themes such as fake news. Mysterio's plan went through several iterations, including an early suggestion that he could be an alien Skrull in disguise.[65]
The film reuses two of Spider-Man's costumes from the previous films: his main costume from Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the Iron Spider suit from Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. It also introduces two new costumes: a black "stealth" costume given to Parker by Nick Fury, and a new, upgraded Spider-Man suit that Parker designs for himself at the end of the film.[66] Marvel Studios' head of visual development Ryan Meinerding explained that Watts had wanted to include a suit inspired by the Spider-Man Noir version of the character, which led to the design of the more tactical stealth suit. He added that the suit represents Parker experimenting with being a new kind of superhero. Other tactical costumes from the comic books were looked at when developing this one, but Meinerding felt they looked less practical than the more straight-forward Noir inspiration. The costume includes tactical goggles that can be flipped up. For Parker's new self-designed costume, Meinerding originally designed it with the idea that it would be made from Parker's webbing since that is the strongest material he has access to.[67] Practical versions of the costumes were created by Ironhead Studio, who previously worked on The Amazing Spider-Man films. For Far From Home, Ironhead developed a skull cap for the costumes that has built-in fans to prevent the goggles from steaming up. They also developed a magnetic bellows system for connecting the goggles to the mask, so they could be easily removed but not fall off during action sequences.[68]
At the end of June 2018, Holland revealed the film's title to be Spider-Man: Far From Home.[69] Feige explained that they decided to reveal the title in this way because they thought it was likely that it would leak after filming began anyway.[70] He compared the title to Spider-Man: Homecoming in that it is "full of alternate meaning" while continuing the use of "Home",[71] and revealed the film's premise to be Parker and his friends going to Europe on summer vacation, away from their home of New York.[72]
