Spider-Man Far From Home screenwriters explain the twists

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Spider Man Far From Home poster — Spider-Man: Far From Home picks up after the events of Avengers: Endgame.

(This article contains spoilers for “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”)

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When it came to crafting “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” the screenwriters, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, had an awfully complicated web to weave.

The movie sends Peter Parker (and his superhero alter ego, Spider-Man, both played by Tom Holland) on a class trip through Europe, but “Far From Home” still had to grapple with the tragic ending of “Avengers: Endgame,” in which Peter lost his mentor, Tony Stark.

“Far From Home” also introduces Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), another superhero who appears to be on Peters side but whom savvy comic-book fans will immediately recognize as Mysterio, one of Spider-Mans classic foes. And then theres the matter of unraveling character threads introduced in 2017s “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” including Peters budding relationship with his classmate MJ (Zendaya).

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In a recent phone conversation, McKenna and Sommers (whose previous collaborations include “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”) explained how they juggled those many plot points and came up with a surprise end-credit twist that promises to spin Spider-Man in a whole new direction. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Q: How did you arrive at the decision to introduce Mysterio as an ally whos working with Samuel L. Jacksons Nick Fury?

CHRIS McKENNA: One of the hardest things with these movies is landing on the villain. With Mysterio, there were versions of the story where he was at the forefront as an out-and-out villain that Peter and Nick were chasing around Europe as he pulled off these events, all building to this back story of why he was doing it, which was a wholly different third act. We went down a lot of different roads.

ERIK SOMMERS: But ultimately, because Mysterio deals so much in deception, it was sort of natural that it led to a story structure where his entire identity was a mislead for a while.

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McKENNA: Theres going to be people familiar enough with the comics who are going to see right through him, but you kind of cant worry about that when youre coming up with a plot like this. You just have to hope that you can get away with it long enough so that when the reveal comes up, people are still having fun with the movie.

Spider-Man: Far From Home review — Jake Gyllenhaals Quentin Beck aka Mysterio plays the main villain in Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Q: And Mysterio employs enough deep-cut comic-book references — including a back story involving an alternate version of Earth — that even super fans might find themselves convinced at first.

SOMMERS: That definitely did help. Any time we find ourselves with a twist or surprise reveal of something like this, we want to do as much as we can to protect it and distract from it ahead of time.

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McKENNA: What we kept saying is that he had to feel like a real character, so we wanted to give him a tragic back story with all the details of coming from another world, and make sure that the Elementals hes fighting felt like a growing, Avengers-level threat. Obviously, it was all smoke and mirrors, but we wanted to make it as believable as possible, and what helped was making Nick Fury — the most paranoid man on the planet — seemingly fall for it.

SOMMERS: If you think of what Mysterio is doing as being a con, then a smart con man is going to employ other people to help sell his lie.

Q: In the end-credit scene, we find out that Nick isnt Nick at all — instead, a shape-shifting alien from “Captain Marvel” has been posing as Nick Fury for the entire movie.

McKENNA: Thematically, we wanted to have as many illusions and twists as possible, and up through the end of the movie, we wanted to make you question everything youve seen beforehand. But it was definitely an idea that came later in the process, and it helped, because if anyone in the audience had issues with Nick Fury falling for Quentins nonsense, it was a nice safety valve to have.

Q: How much did Marvel divulge to you about the big twists in “Avengers: Endgame” when you started writing this movie?

McKENNA: We were like, “Wait, who goes away? And how do they come back?” We didnt actually see “Endgame” until the premiere — maybe if wed known more in advance, we would have made a joke about Valkyrie riding a Pegasus, because you definitely want to reference that.

SOMMERS: Youre given everything on a need-to-know basis.

McKENNA: The two major things we knew were the five-year gap and the ramifications it would have for the people who did and didnt get blipped away. And, obviously, the Tony of it all.

Q: The shadow that Tonys death casts over this movie almost makes him an alternate version of Uncle Ben from the Spider-Man comic books. When Tony bequeaths a powerful gift to Peter in “Far From Home,” it might as well come with a little note saying, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

McKENNA: The other “Spider-Man” movies obviously dealt with Uncle Ben, and “Homecoming” hinted at it, but youre right: In a lot of ways, the gravitas really comes from Peters relationship with Tony.

SOMMERS: Its assumed that there probably was an Uncle Ben and the pain of that loss is lingering there, but this gave everyone the chance to create a whole new friendship between Peter and his mentor, Tony, and to deal with the loss of that, which is a very powerful, emotional event in his life.