Spider-Man: Far From Home‘s mid-credits scene features a mini-crossover, of sorts, with a cameo by real-life news anchor Pat Kiernan from New York’s NY1 news station. Kiernan, who is credited as himself in Far From Home, previously appeared in episodes of Marvel Cinematic Universe-set Netflix series Daredevil and The Punisher. Kiernan’s past Marvel Studios credits include Doctor Strange, Iron Man 3 and The Avengers. Outside of the MCU, Kiernan has made appearances in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony’s Ghostbusters reboot and Mr. Robot. The familiar face from the MCU was pointed out by Reddit user u/AnkitSaha_013 in a post to the Marvel Studios subreddit.
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The mid-credits sequence — spoilers — sees Kiernan present a video captured by pretend superhero Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), recorded moments before his apparent death in London, where he was defeated by Spider-Man (Tom Holland). The video comes courtesy of controversial website TheDailyBugle.net and pundit J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), who then outs Spider-Man’s secret identity.
“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,’” Far From Home co-writer Chris McKenna previously told the New York Times when explaining the decision to reveal Peter Parker’s greatest secret to the world.
Added co-writer Erik Sommers, “Ultimately, we realized that because it scared us, you have to run toward it.”
Because Far From Home touched on “fake news” when dealing with illusions weaponized by Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck, the writers found it fitting to re-imagine newsman Jameson as a controversial mouthpiece inspired by Alex Jones.
“I don’t know if it was [director Jon] Watts or someone else who said, ‘It should be the Daily Bugle, and it should be J. Jonah Jameson.’ That idea has been lingering around since Homecoming: How do we insert our new version of J. Jonah?” McKenna told the Times. Sommers added Jameson’s unveiling in the scene exposing Spider-Man to the world then “fell into place very naturally.”
“Something that had been floating through this entire movie was the idea of ‘fake news’ and how can you believe everything you see?” McKenna said. “We had been toying with the idea that Mysterio would turn Spider-Man into a villain, just like he did in the comic books, and it felt like that then tied into this J. Jonah 2.0 as the Alex Jones of the MCU.”
Spider-Man: Far From Home is now available to own on Digital HD and releases to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and DVD October 1.
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Image courtesy of Sony Pictures
