Spider-Man: Far From Home’s Shock Ending Reveal Scared the Creative Team

Writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers admit they were intimidated by the big reveal that ends Spider-Man: Far From Home. Major spoilers ahead.

In its mid-credits scene, the Homecoming followup sees Peter Parker (Tom Holland) returned to New York as a more fully-formed Spider-Man, whose web-swinging trek through the city with new girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) ends on a sour note when TheDailyBugle.net pundit J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) exposes Spider-Man’s secret identity on national television.

“We were challenged by the producers to come up with something that Peter sacrifices by the end of this movie, and when we hit upon that as a group, it became a very scary idea: ‘Oh, no, we can’t do that! Then it’s not a Spider-Man movie anymore,’” McKenna tells the New York Times.

Added Sommers, “Ultimately, we realized that because it scared us, you have to run toward it.”

With the inclusion of master of deception Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is responsible for Peter’s blown cover and a tape that frames the webhead as a murderer, the identity shake-up was “inevitable.”

“It’s such a bold maneuver that it became inevitable, particularly with a tricky character like Mysterio, who’s this dark father figure,” McKenna said. “From the grave, is he trying to give Peter his ‘I’m Iron Man’ moment? It’s thrust upon him, but is this a lesson or a punishment?”

Spidey has found himself in similar predicaments over the course of his near 60-year history, Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige hinted Peter Parker’s biggest nightmare is one that will not be reversed.

“The how and the when and the specifics can change and evolve, but setting yourself up for something that has never been done before… at the end of Iron Man, it was a hero publicly outing himself so that in the next movies and all subsequent movies, we couldn’t fall back on the secret identity trope which had been part of Iron Man’s story for decades in the comics,” Feige recently told Fandango.

“And now people know Peter’s identity. People now think he’s a villain, Mysterio plays one last trick on him and succeeds… [so that] means everything’s different. Where it goes, we’ll see. But it’s exciting that it once again sets us up for a Peter Parker story that has never been done before on film.”