Neatly timed to coincide with the review embargo lifting, Entertainment Weekly has shed light on its spectacular Spider-Man: Homecoming cover, along with the outlet’s new, in-depth interview with director Jon Watts.
In another example of Marvel handing the keys to the MCU kingdom over to a relatively up-and-coming filmmaker, before Homecoming, Watts had only two low-budget indie budgets under his belt: Clown and Cop Car. Taking the reins of Marvel’s Spidey reboot – a Spidey reboot that came about thanks to a historic partnership between Marvel and Sony Pictures, no less – is a remarkable leap of faith, and we’re pleased to report that Homecoming stands as another triumph for the MCU. But more on that later.
Per EW, here’s what Watts had to say about tackling the much younger version of Peter Parker:
“The fact that Peter Parker is 15 allows me to have fun with it. Yes, there’s a lot of drama and conflict, but more than anything, it’s about, ‘If you were that age and could do what he can do? That would be really fun.”
Spider-Man: Homecoming is still one week out from its release here in North America, but there’s a tangible excitement swirling around Watts’ franchise reset in light of those glowing reviews. It’s the beginning of an all-new Spidey trilogy, too, and we know that Tom Holland’s Web-Head is booked in for an appearance in Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, followed by Spider-Man: Homecoming 2 in July 0f 2019.
Jon Watts fully expects to be back in the director’s chair for that one, and while promoting the launch of Homecoming during an interview with HeyUGuys, Marvel boss Kevin Feige touched base on Spidey’s rogues gallery and his desire to introduce a host of new antagonists in the 2019 sequel.
We haven’t talked about that. What’s fun about this is it’s the first time Spider-Man is in the MCU. And the first time he’s played by an actor who is the age, essentially, Spidey was in the comics for so long. And, as Michael Keaton does with the Vulture, we get to explore villains we haven’t seen before. Spidey has an amazing rogues gallery, so at some point I think it might be interesting to revisit some of the characters we’ve seen in films before, but right now, we think there are a lot of new ones we haven’t played with yet.
As for Homecoming‘s early critical consensus, the Marvel pic scored highly in our own review, too, after Robert Yaniz Jr. declared that, “it may not quite reach the heights of Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, but Spider-Man: Homecoming emerges as one of the character’s strongest films to date, granting him a clean slate and infinite room to grow.”
We’ll be able to see what all the fuss is about on July 7th. Spider-Man: Homecoming 2, meanwhile, has a release date of July 5th, 2019.
