A Marvel Comics character who appears in Spider-Man: Far From Home was not inspired by their appearance in the Spider-Man PlayStation 4 game, screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. Spoilers ahead.
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“They were talking about bringing back J.K. [Simmons] pretty early in the process,” Sommers said of the returning Spider-Man trilogy star, who premieres as a revamped J. Jonah Jameson in Far From Home‘s mid-credits scene.
“Then it was pitched by someone on the team to have the Daily Bugle now be this internet kind of thing and have him be more of an Alex Jones kind of character. We all liked that idea so that’s what we went with.”
The film was long in development before the game released in September, and it’s coincidence Simmons’ MCU JJJ shares similarities to the ranting conspiracy theorist and newspaperman-turned-radio host Jameson depicted in Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Filmmakers instead drew inspiration from InfoWars‘ Alex Jones, introducing what McKenna nicknamed the “Whiplash version” of Simmons’ Jameson.
“Something that had been floating through this entire movie was the idea of ‘fake news’ and how can you believe everything you see?” McKenna told the New York Times when pointing to the intricate deceit of Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal).
“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.”
The updated version is “a little less comic book,” McKenna added, and the MCU is instead “taking him in a slightly different direction.”
Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Cobie Smulders, Jake Gyllenhaal and Samuel L. Jackson, Spider-Man: Far From Home is now playing.