‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ Director Wanted Nick Fury in ‘Homecoming’

Spider-Man: Far From Home director Jon Watts originally hoped to include Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in 2017’s Homecoming, which found rookie superhero Peter Parker (Tom Holland) again under the tutelage of mentor Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr).

“If Tony is like the supportive cool uncle, Fury’s more like the mean new stepdad. Fury doesn’t see himself in Peter Parker. Fury sees Peter Parker as an asset that he needs who is too preoccupied with a bunch of high school problems,” Watts told USA Today, adding he’s been wanting to use Jackson’s super-spy S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for quite some time.

“Part of my pitch for the very first movie was bringing Nick Fury in and making him the mean substitute teacher.”

While the preceding Homecoming was inspired by such seminal John Hughes-penned ’80s teen comedies as The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink — with a touch of Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future — this time Watts looked to William Dear’s If Looks Could Kill, a 1991 action-comedy that sees a high school student (Richard Grieco) embark on an overseas class trip, where he’s mixed up with a secret agent as part of a James Bond-like adventure.

“You get to have this teenage James Bond character,” Watts said. “Total world-weary Nick Fury and enthusiastic New York teenager Peter Parker gallivanting across Europe – what’s more fun than that? You put them together and you have some good stuff.”

The unwitting Peter Parker finds his own overseas field trip hijacked by Nick Fury, who recruits the teen superhero to help save Europe as the continent is besieged by elemental creatures. Spider-Man is then partnered with the high-tech Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is surprisingly backed by the shadowy Fury.

“There are these threats to the world, the Elementals, elemental creatures. And Mysterio is someone who knows about them and wants to make sure that the world is safe from them,” Gyllenhaal revealed at Brazil’s CCXP in December.

“And Nick Fury asks him to come on and help because he’s the only one who really understands them. And then he teams up with friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and unfortunately has to make him become more than a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Cobie Smulders, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Samuel L. Jackson, Spider-Man: Far From Home swings into theaters July 2.

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