Spider-Man's homecoming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been a huge success for both
Marvel Studios and Sony, but as amazing as Spidey's new solo movie is, there were still
numerous scenes and ideas that were deleted and rejected from the final film.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here, and in this video, I'll be explaining some
fascinating scenes and concepts that never made the final cut of Homecoming involving
a whole range of characters such as Nick Fury, Vulture, Aunt May, Tony Stark and Captain
America, and I'll be exploring the use of Peter Parker's Spider Sense in the movie.
I'm also running a Spider-Man: Homecoming giveaway at the moment for a couple of Funko
Pops, plus a pack of Homecoming merchandise.
For a chance to win, make sure you subscribe, hit the bell for notifications, and leave
me a comment with your thoughts about the deleted scenes or any future Marvel movies.
And quick warning: there are spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Homecoming, so take care if
you haven't seen the movie yet.
In many ways, it seems totally logical that Homecoming would continue to develop Tony
Stark's mentor-style relationship with Spider-Man from Civil War.
But originally, director Jon Watts had somebody quite different in mind to fill that role.
Yes, as part of a visual presentation before he landed the job of director, Watts created
images of former SHIELD director Nick Fury as Peter Parker's mentor.
When you think about it, it's hardly surprising that initially Watts thought of featuring
Nick Fury in the movie especially given the influence on the film of Brian Michael Bendis
and Mark Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man comics, in which Nick Fury plays a prominent part
and is even viewed as a sort of father figure by Peter.
It would have been intriguing to see just which aspects of that comic-book interaction
between Fury and Spidey that Watts would have brought across to Homecoming.
And it would have been nice to see Samuel L Jackson back as Fury given that we've not
seen him since 2015's Age of Ultron.
Of course, Tony Stark's presence in the new Spidey-verse provides the MCU with an easy
explanation for how such a young guy has such an incredibly tricked-out suit, as Kevin Feige
himself has said.
But, ultimately, the reason for Iron Man's inclusion in Homecoming over Nick Fury seems
to be that Tony Stark's presence in Peter Parker's world was one of the keys to the
deal that Marvel brokered with Sony to bring Spider-Man into the MCU fold.
After all, Iron Man equals big bucks at the box office.
By the way, Tom Holland's next solo movie as Spidey will also feature another Marvel
character, but, according to the Hollywood Reporter, it's unlikely to be Iron Man next
time.
Maybe that means there'll be room for Nick Fury to step in to the role of guiding Spidey
through his early years as a superhero, as director Jon Watts originally envisaged.
Or perhaps Captain America's role could be expanded beyond those PSA cameos, and, actually,
that would be something Tom Holland would be totally down with as, in a recent interview
with IMDB, when asked to choose another Avenger as a mentor for Spidey, Holland immediately
picked Captain America, even though he thinks Cap would be much stricter than Tony Stark!
And in the meantime, it looks like, instead of mentoring Peter Parker, Nick Fury could
be appearing in Captain Marvel's first solo movie.
The extent or nature of Fury's role in the Captain Marvel film hasn't been confirmed
yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if he took on the part of a mentor for Carol Danvers
in a similar way that Tony Stark did with Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
I've gotta say I did enjoy Tony Stark's role in the film and, for me, it didn't feel overwhelming,
which, given the marketing for the movie, I had thought it might do.
Still, marketing for the film definitely did play up Iron Man's role in the movie with
several Iron Man and Tony Stark shots in the trailer which didn't make it into the final
feature.
For example, this shot of Spider-Man and Iron Man flying was wanted specifically by the
movie's marketing team for use in the trailer.
There was footage of the two together from the Staten Island Ferry scene, but Jon Watts
felt the background was too plain, so, instead they decided to put them together with a shot
of Queens in the background.
And there's another scene with Tony Stark and Peter Parker which was cut down quite
a bit from what we saw in the trailers.
It takes place when Tony has his chat with Peter when they arrive back in Queens after
the events of Civil War.
Peter's excited that he's going to be a big part of the Avengers now, but Tony's downplaying
it with a mix of his trademark dry humour and one-liners.
I suspect what happened here is that they shot more lines and gags than were needed,
and maybe Robert Downey Junior and Tom Holland even improvised some.
"So to become an Avenger, are there like trials or an interview?"
"Just don't do anything I would do."
"This does not mean you're an Avenger.
Case you were wondering."
"Oh."
"I can keep the suit?"
"Course, doesn't fit me."
"All right kid, good luck out there!"
Captain America: Civil War introduced the MCU to a very different Aunt May than we've
seen before on the big screen.
Marisa Tomei's May is a much younger woman who Tony Stark can't resist flirting with.
But two months later, during the main timeline of Spider-Man: Homecoming, when she and Peter
are at a Thai restaurant, May comes right out and says she's not a fan of Tony Stark.
And Marisa Tomei revealed in an interview with Good Morning America that there's a deleted
scene of her and Tony which I think sounds like it would clarify why she doesn't like
him.
Tomei says she filmed a scene where she was at a protest against Stark Industries and,
at one point, she and Tony Stark eyeballed each other.
Tomei didn't elaborate any further, so we don't know for sure what the protest was about,
but I wonder if was anything to do with the fallout from Civil War.
Prior to Civil War, Captain America was a war hero and there was probably still sympathy
towards him in some sectors of the public.
Tony Stark, on the other hand, is a billionaire former CEO, so there's no shortage of things
he could have done to draw anger from the public and it's possible some people blamed
him for splitting up the Avengers.
Then there are people like Michael Keaton's Toomes who are angry at the rich and powerful
who he sees as rigging the system in their favour at the expense of ordinary hard-working
guys like himself.
So, I'm curious whether this deleted scene was going to expand even further on this theme
which was already in the movie.
And remember, in the film, Michelle says she wants to do some protesting in Washington
before the Academic Decathlon.
Well, we never got to see that either, so maybe that's the scene Tomei is referring
to.
I think it's a shame we didn't get May's protest scene as it would have helped fill in a little
bit of missing story for her character and why she doesn't seem to like Tony Stark.
I did enjoy Tomei's portrayal of Aunt May, but I think there could have been a little
more for her to do in Homecoming.
In fact, Tomei has said that she and Jon Watts worked on a lot of details about May's character
which didn't make it into the film and there's a trace of another deleted scene with her
in the trailers.
You can see here in this very short shot that May's walking into what could be a classroom
or an office with a worried look on her face.
And if you look carefully behind May, there's an actress who we didn't see in the rest of
the movie and I think this could be Jona Xiao who, in August 2016, was reported by Variety
as having been cast in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Xiao, who's known for work on the shows Halt And Catch Fire and Being Mary Jane, wasn't
credited in the final film and her agent has confirmed that her scene was cut from the
movie.
And according to an interview with Polygon, Marisa Tomei pushed for Xiao to be cast as
this character who, she says, "is part of a revelation that happens in the film, at
a very dramatic point."
All of this indicates a potentially very interesting scene cut from the movie that hopefully we'll
see on the Blu-ray release.
We've already seen a couple of other main love interests on the big screen for Spider-Man
with Mary Jane in the Sam Raimi trilogy and Gwen Stacy in the Andrew Garfield movies,
so Homecoming, instead, introduced a new crush for Peter Parker, Liz Allen.
Although this film does build up their romantic connection, it seems like the filmmakers thwarted
any real romance.
First, we had that call-back to Spider-Man's upside-down kiss with MJ in the first Tobey
Maguire movie when, in this film, Spidey is hanging upside down opposite Liz after saving
her from the plummeting elevator.
Spidey's suit lady Karen even says to him, "This is your chance Peter, kiss her", but
the moment is taken away when the webbing holding Peter breaks.
And actress Laura Harrier who plays Liz Allen said, in an interview with ComicBook.com,
that she filmed "a lot of different kissing scenes [but] none of them are in the movie
now".
And in fact, we did glimpse a kiss between them at the Homecoming Dance in the trailers,
but this was cut from the final movie.
And given that Liz is going to move away, I'm guessing the filmmakers are closing down
any future romance between the two in the sequel.
So, it'll be interesting to see if they take the route of hooking Peter up with MJ.
I don't know about you but I loved Captain America's PSAs, which Homecoming director
Jon Watts got the idea for from a long-running US programme to get kids fit called the President's
Challenge.
Of course, we got to see Cap speak to America's youth on subjects from keeping fit to getting
detention, and we even saw the start of a 'so, your body's going through changes' PSA,
and there was also that cheeky little fourth-wall-breaking one about patience in the post-credits.
But, according to Jon Watts, he filmed a load more PSAs with Chris Evans as Cap that didn't
make it into the final movie, including one about brushing your teeth, and there should
be even more of those to come when the Blu-ray's released!
Speaking of Cap, his shield got a shout-out in the scene where Happy Hogan is arranging
the move of Avengers tech to their new facility.
The items Happy mentions in the final film are Cap's shield, Tony's Hulkbuster armour,
and Thor's magic belt, but originally director Jon Watts co-wrote a whole page of monologue
for that scene listing out a big range of items that Happy was sorting out the transport
for.
Now, Watts is a fellow easter egg fan so loved loading up his movie with as many as possible,
but I think, in this case, he made the right decision to keep the moving-day scene tight,
mentioning just three items, even though that means we lost a bunch more delicious Marvel
easter eggs.
And, going back to the trailers, there was yet another scene that didn't make it into
the movie.
The shot of Vulture swooping down through a hotel atrium was a scene that Jon Watts
put together specifically for a teaser at Comic-Con.
It was never actually meant to be in the movie and was only created because, at the time,
Watts didn't have enough material for the sizzle reel that Marvel needed for the annual
San Diego event.
The scene was filmed at the Marriott hotel in Atlanta and although none of that shot
made it into the final film, a similar take of Vulture swooping down towards the camera
was used for the villainous character's entrance in the movie, but this time with a completely
different backdrop; his crew's workshop.
In the comics and on screen, the intuitive Spider Sense that Peter Parker acquired after
being bitten by a radioactive spider has been an essential part of his story.
And I feel like we do see his Spider Sense on display at some points during his fight
scene in Captain America: Civil War, though, at other times in that film, he doesn't seem
to have it, despite the fact that Peter specifically tells Tony Stark that the goggles on his home-made
suit help him focus since his senses have been dialled up to 11.
But in Homecoming, apart from a few moments like where Peter web grenades a baddie without
looking at him, the filmmakers made a specific creative decision to dial back Peter's Spider-Sense
for his first MCU solo movie, their reason being that it's been seen so much already
in Spidey's previous films.
However, this doesn't mean that Peter's Spider Sense is being abandoned altogether in the
MCU.
Indeed, Kevin Feige has explained that their intention is to make his Spider Sense more
internal to Peter and less dramatic than it's appeared in previous cinematic portrayals.
All of which makes me think the fact that Spidey sometimes appears to have his Spider
Sense and other times doesn't may be to do with the fact that what we're seeing in these
movies now is a fresh take on Spidey's early days as a superhero and they want to show
that he's still getting to grips with his powers and doesn't have full control of them.
I do hope that we see Peter's Spider Sense progress in upcoming films as it's one of
Spidey's greatest strengths and it's also just one of the things I love about his character.
By introducing Spider-Man in Civil War and not going back in time with a prequel solo
movie, it meant that we didn't get Peter's origin story, though frankly, I don't know
about you, but I really didn't need to see him get bitten by a spider for the third time
so I'm kinda glad they skipped showing that and, instead, gave it just a passing mention!
And I also liked the filmmakers' new spin on Peter Parker's work at the Daily Bugle,
which they updated by showing Peter's attachment to videoing everything on his smartphone.
But no full origin story also meant there was no Uncle Ben to teach Peter that "with
great power comes great responsibility."
It's a shame we didn't get that classic line, which I love, but there was just the slightest
allusion to a recent tragedy when Peter says to Ned that he can't tell Aunt May about his
secret webcrawling activities.
But really, overall, I thought it was better that Uncle Ben wasn't dragged out again as
we've seen two recent iterations of him on the big screen and, at this point, a third
Uncle Ben would have probably just felt repetitive.
I would like to see Uncle Ben's backstory teased a little further in subtle ways in
the next film, however, there are fan theories out there suggesting Uncle Ben is actually
still alive in the MCU and, in a surprise twist, could appear in a future movie.
Now, what do you think about Spider-Man: Homecoming's deleted scenes?
And how do you think Homecoming and Tom Holland's Spider-Man compare with the Tobey Maguire
and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies?
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
And don't forget to subscribe and leave me a comment about the movie for a chance to
win either a Spider-Man Funko Pop or some cool official merchandise.
Make sure you turn on your notifications to get all my new videos where I'll be announcing
the winners of the giveaway.
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what movie deleted scenes you'd like me to do in a future video.
In the meantime, you can check out my full movie deleted scenes playlist here or why
not watch my epic Homecoming easter eggs video?
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prize.
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!