'Spider-Man: Far From Home' director Jon Watts explains why cool trailer scene got cut from the film

As anyone who’s so hyped for Spider-Man: Far From Home they’ve watched the trailer on a loop a thousand times will be able to tell you, the film features a sequence where Peter takes on a bunch of gun-wielding gangsters in a restaurant at one point.

Except, it doesn’t - the scene isn’t actually in the final film. We took the opportunity to ask director Jon Watts why such a big set piece got cut, getting a pretty sweet scoop in the process.

BE WARNED - OUR SPOILER SENSE IS TINGLING

“It’s funny, because that seems like a big important scene,” Watts tells Yahoo Movies UK.

“But it was just part of this montage of the things Peter has to do before he goes on his trip. It included him going to Delmar’s Deli which was blown up in Homecoming, which has since been rebuilt, so he could buy a dual headphone adapter for MJ on the plane.”

“He had to get one of those foreign travel plugs, he had to go to a pawn shop to sell his Star Wars action figures so that he would have enough money to buy MJ that necklace, and he had to go pick up his new passport, because probably after the blip everyone would need a new passport as everyone’s ages would be weird.”

“Then the last thing on his list was to take down this giant crime organisation. So it was just a checklist of things to do. That’ll be on the Blu-ray and the digital release, we turned it into this little short film. It was just one of his errands (laughs).”

We went into a deep dive on Far From Home (well, as deep as we could go without spoiling any of the twists and turns of the plot) with Watts - discussing everything from Uncle Ben, to the Spider-Verse, to Venom. You can read the full interview below.

Yahoo Movies UK: Homecoming had six writing credits, and Far From Home has just two - What was the difference between writing the first one and writing this one? They say you have your whole life to write your first album, and then…

I say that all the time, about writing sequels - then you’ve got six months to write the second one, right?

Exactly.

For this one, it just made more sense now that we had established the tone and knew the characters, to just have two guys dedicated to writing the pages and we’d all work together in the room to crack that outline and figure out all the story points. But because we had to go right into prep and right into scouting, we just had them dedicated to writing pages.

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There was less exploration than on the first film, where we were essentially starting from scratch and trying to rebuild Spider-Man. So it was more helpful to have additional voices on the first film, but on this one it was much more efficient to stick with Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers.

There was a sequence in the trailer where Spider-Man takes on some gangsters in a restaurant, but obviously that wasn’t in the final film. Why was it cut?

It’s funny, because that seems like a big important scene…

Yeah, exactly.

...But it was just part of this montage of the things Peter has to do before he goes on his trip. It included him going to Delmar’s Deli which was blown up in Homecoming, which has since been rebuilt, so he could buy a dual headphone adapter for MJ on the plane.

He had to get one of those foreign travel plugs, he had to go to a pawn shop to sell his Star Wars action figures so that he would have enough money to buy MJ that necklace, and he had to go pick up his new passport, because probably all of your passports would have to be reissued after the blip, as everyone’s age would be weird.

Then the last thing on his list was to take down this giant crime organisation. So it was just a checklist of things to do.

That’s great!

That’ll be on the Blu-ray and the digital release, we turned it into this little short film. It was just one of his errands (laughs).

In the film, Peter’s mourning Tony Stark - we see that in the trailers - but we didn’t see him mourn Uncle Ben in the first film. It also seems like he hasn’t learned the ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ lesson yet, going by the plot of this film. What is Uncle Ben’s place in this universe and in the MCU?

We haven’t specifically said, which is something that’s intriguing. I would say that loss is such a big part of Peter Parker’s DNA, it’s one of the defining characteristics, and that’s how you get to that famous quote.

So, this film was an opportunity for me to tackle that intrinsic concept from the comics, but do it in a different way by using Tony Stark. It’s not the exact same thing, but it does let you explore some of those iconic Spider-Man themes through the loss of Tony.

In the trailer Peter’s asked if he’s the next Iron Man, it feels almost meta - do you think the MCU needs an Iron Man type character to hinge upon, and will that be Peter?

That’s the question. And I love reading comments, people get so mad sometimes online, saying ‘You’re turning Spider-Man into Iron Man junior!’ For me, this is all part of the growing process Where you’re hoping not that he becomes the next Iron Man, but that he becomes the first Spider-Man.

It’s what growing up is all about, you start living in the shadows of your mentors and hopefully you find out who you are, and it allows you to separate yourself, and step out of their shadow.

What would you say the biggest difference between the MCU Spider-Man and the comics’ Spider-Man is?

That’s a tricky question to answer, because there’s been so many versions of Spider-Man in the comics. So, for me, I go back to the very original issues to just remind myself of the things that made Spider-Man so great immediately. Spider-Man was an immediate success, so I just go back to that.

Any idea we can come up with, that we can do in a movie, has already been explored in the comics in some capacity, at some point. If you really go in like a researcher and do your homework, you’ll be ‘Actually, Spider-Man was recruited as a spy and sent to Europe in this particular special issue.’

Tom Holland has said he’d like to do an Into The Spider-Verse style movie with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, is that something you’d like to tackle? Can you imagine how crazy fans would go at that trailer reveal?

When you talk about the multiverse, it opens up so many possibilities. Have Jake Johnson in there too, Spider-Ham [laughs]… I’d go see it!

Fans really want to see Venom and Spider-Man crossover, it feels like it would be a tricky film to get right, as they’re different tonally, what did you think of the Venom movie, and how would you approach combining those two worlds?

I’d love to see the two Toms together. I don’t know if they are that different tonally, actually. The thing that stood out more than anything else in Venom was the humour. Even though it was so dark and twisted, it was so funny!

Read more: Tom Hardy confirmed for Venom 2

The director comes from such a great comedy background as well, I think you feel that in the film. So I don’t know if it would be that tonally different. I think it would be scary, but it would also be really funny.

Tom Hardy’s performance is so unique, how would you feel about him as an actor, and what would appeal about working with him?

I don’t know where to begin. I definitely would not cover up his face. I know that’s an instinct for many directors, where they cover up his nose and his mouth.

Hopefully I can resist that temptation.

That would be a bit difficult with Venom though…

(laughs) Yeah!

There’s been a couple of other Marvel movies this year. How did you feel when you watched Captain Marvel for the first time, and how did you feel when you watched Endgame for the first time?

I wasn’t as keyed in to everything that happened in Captain Marvel, so I saw that more as an audience member, which was really fun. I was especially intrigued by seeing Nick Fury’s backstory. It was great to know how that was all fitting in to our film.

Because you pitched Nick Fury being in this film a long time ago, didn’t you?

I wanted Nick Fury to face off against Spider-Man from the very beginning. So the fact we got to see Nick Fury’s origin story, essentially, in Captain Marvel really helped set up what we were doing in this film.

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Endgame I knew everything that was going to happen. The one thing I didn’t realise was that, until the premiere, I didn’t know that Tony was going to look at that picture of him and Peter with the Stark scholarship, and that was going to be the thing that finally pushed him over the edge to start looking into time travel.

So when I saw that, that really hit me. Just how important Peter was to Tony in Endgame, and how important Tony’s going to be to Peter in Far From Home.

In terms of Phase 4, how many conversations have you had around that, and how far into the future have you discussed?

I try to not think about it too much, but I do know that they’re planning some pretty incredible stuff, but I’ll wait for Kevin Feige to tell the world about that.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is in cinemas from 2 July.