Kevin Feige Explains How Spider-Man: Far From Home Lives Up to High Bar Set by Spider-Verse

Marvel Studios chief and Spider-Man: Far From Home producer Kevin Feige says the film's choice of villain prevents the followup from feeling "really lame" even in the wake of Sony's animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

"I loved Spider-Verse and thought it was great. I wasn't nervous, but I was thankful that we went with Mysterio when we were deciding what villain to use," Feige told BET.

"We wanted to do a villain that hadn't been seen before. And Mysterio was high on the list. There were some questions about his powers and is it too confusing and the illusions and things like that. [But] we were like, no, that's what would be fun. I saw Spider-Verse and said thank God we went with something daring and complex. If it had just been an average Spider-Man villain chasing him around buildings and trying to hit him with a blast, it would have seemed really lame next to Spider-Verse."

The Homecoming followup introduces Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal) as an armor-wearing superhero claiming to come from an alternate Earth destroyed by elemental-powered creatures, a direction borrowed from the character's first appearance in 1964's Amazing Spider-Man #13.

"Mysterio enters the comic as a hero. So, I always took it right back to the source material and what made that character exciting initially," director Jon Watts previously told Fandango.

"But in terms of how we ended up with Mysterio in the first place, I mean, I wanted to put a character on screen that we hadn't seen before. Of the big, iconic villains, Mysterio was the one who jumped to the top. Because of who he is, what he may-or-may-not be able to do, it's really opened up a lot of possibilities for the kind of story we can tell with him."

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