Everything We Learned From the Spider-Man: Far From Home Set

Bigger Action and Higher Stakes

"I wanted to really raise the action stakes from the last movie," Spider-Man: Far From Home director Jon Watts explained.

"With the Vulture it's a one-on-one fight," he added, referencing his first outing with the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Spider-Man: Homecoming. "A mechanized villain. But with Spider-Man, you have the ability to do so much more. We've seen him fight much larger villains and have spectacular set pieces...I've always loved Hydro-Man and Molten Man and his ability to have a giant, elemental kind of creature for Spider-Man to fight against. Anything that makes things more difficult for him and opens up visual opportunities for me, I'll run at bat."

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Shifting the Focus to Peter After Avengers: Endgame

"Small is the wrong word," Watts told members of the press on the set of Spider-Man: Far From Home when asked about his film's comparison to Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. "But just as a character-based story, Peter Parker is such an interesting character. And no, instead of thinking about it in the context of the larger universe, I like to think about it in the context of Peter Parker's emotional journey. Where was he last time? Where did he end up? Where is he going to go now?"

As things will have played out, Peter Parker will still be a junior in high school for Spider-Man: Far From Home, despite five years having passed since the ending of Spider-Man: Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War. Those years haven't passed for Peter Parker and many of his friends, though. The Snapped did not age.

"I just try to focus on Peter's story," Watts said. "And make it the strongest story that I can tell."

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Tony Stark's Influence on Far From Home

When ComicBook.com visited the set of Spider-Man: Far From Home in London, Avengers: Endgame was months away from release. Tony Stark's fate as a sacrificial hero was known to few and definitely not spoken about during any interviews ahead of the film's release. Still, Happy Hogan actor Jon Favreau managed to describe Tony Stark's role in Spider-Man: Far From Home while skirting a spoiler ahead of time.

"I try to know as much as my character does, so I try not to know too much," Favreau said. "Happy isn't somebody who's innovating technology, but he's one who's been and Spider-Man's sort of a tech hero. I think what's been established in the MCU is that we're really leaning into that he's a little genius too."

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Peter's New Mission

"At the end of the day, it's always about saving people and doing the right thing," Holland said. When Thor, Captain Marvel, and others aren't available, Nick Fury is turning to Spider-Man. "The world is at risk in this film. I feel like the Vulture was sort of low level crime, it was under the radar. Not many people knew about it, but this is a worldwide event. The stakes are much higher for him and I think he understands that, meaning he has to really show up and bring his A-game. At the heart of the film, Peter Parker just wants to tell the girl he really likes that he loves her and have a nice holiday. But that all gets ruined."

It's the long way of answering a question about what Peter's main mission is in the film. In simple terms, it sounds like Peter's mission is to save the world. However, the element of a relationship with MJ is also a major factor.

"He's very much love driven in this film and taking a break," Holland explained. "This film is all about him trying to take a break but the responsibility of being Spider-Man always taking over, which is quite funny, because the first film we were really keen to show Peter Parker enjoying his powers and really wanting to be Spider-Man."

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Mysterio and the Elementals

"Mysterio enters the comic as a hero," Far From Home director Jon Watts explained. "So, I always took it right back to the source material and what made that character exciting initially." Of course, Mysterio does take a villain turn as much of his powers and lure are built on illusion and lies.

"But in terms of how we ended up with Mysterio in the first place, I wanted to put a character on screen that we hadn't seen before," Watts said. While this may limit the options in some minds, seeing as the Green Goblin, Sandman, Electro, and many others have been seen before, Watts looks forward to exploring uncharted cinematic territory with the wallcrawler's villains. "But of the big, iconic villains, Mysterio was the one who jumped to the top," Watts explained. "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. So, it was pretty clear Mysterio would make a good addition for the universe."

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Comparisons to Homecoming and Iron Man

"I like to think I was the Nick Fury of Homecoming," Favreau told reporters on the set of Spider-Man: Far From Home in 2018. "Now I'm more the Hagrid."

Favreau had stepped off of the live set to chat about the film. Moments prior, he was standing beside Zendaya, Jonathan Battalon, Angourie Rice, and Tony Revolori as they jointly prepared to face terror inside of a London museum. Happy appears to have taken on a chaperone role of sorts, likely having a hard time protecting Peter Parker's hero identity in the process, but also developing a protective relationship with the high school students.

"By extension, all these kids are in my charge because just by association with Peter, they're drawn into a world that's a lot more dangerous than the high school experience that these kids should be going through," Favreau explained. "It's cool for me because the school's kind of based on the high school I went to, Bronx Science. I'm throwing out geeky lines to them, acting too cool for my character. I'm like, 'That's actually not a spear, it's a halberd.' Knowing what every weapon in [the museum] is. I remember from my Dungeons and Dragons days, so it's kind of fun."

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What Aunt May's Knowledge of Peter's Spider-Man Secret Means for Far From Home

"Yeah, it's an interesting question," Tom Holland said. "Obviously bigger things in the MCU have happened that we need to talk about. So, when we find May for the first time, she's kind of egging Peter on. There's a very funny line, where she's talking about, 'I hope you've taken down some crime family.'" Of course, she might not have envisioned Peter going to space to fight Thanos or not being able to take a class trip to Europe without being burdened with saving the world.

Still, Aunt May is supportive. "She's in on it and she understands his power," Holland added. "She understands that he's safe, most of the time. When he's being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, little harm can come to him, but when he takes on bigger foes, I think she is just as worried as she was in the first one."

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J. Jonah Jameson and The Daily Bugle

"Yes, we've absolutely talked and thought about those characters a lot, specifically in reference to this film," explained executive producer Eric Hauserman Carroll. "What we just want to make sure we're [presenting] them in a way that doesn't make you feel instantly like you've seen them before. So we have a couple of ideas, some of which I can't really go into detail because they're spoilery, but it's absolutely – if we had an 'in for the Daily Bugle that wasn't just your traditional newspaper and [with] Peter Parker, there's this cool, weird thing happening where being a photographer isn't necessarily a mark of distinction anymore. We all have better cameras in our pockets than most people even owned ten years ago. So how do we get Peter or somebody into that world without it feeling like, do kids really aspire to go be photographers for The New York Times anymore? Or do they aspire to have their tweet reposted, and so on.

"So we're trying to pay as much homage to the source material as possible, and we do think there are a couple of fun ideas like that in here, most of which I don't want to spell out for you, but absolutely. We want to take as much of the mythology that people love and present it in a way that's totally faithful to what people love about it, but in a [different] way."

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