'Spider-Man: Far From Home' writers share insights behind film's two biggest twists
Warning: Major Spider-Man: Far From Home spoilers ahead, obviously
Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers knew they faced a major challenge in masking the true intentions of their villain.
The Spider-Man: Far From Home screenwriters, who previously collaborated on 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming and 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp, were dead-set on ultimately making Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) their Enemy No. 1, yet selling him to the audience as a hero who becomes a new father figure to Peter Parker (Tom Holland) before the film's mid-point twist. If you've read the comics, though, you know what the master illusionist Mysterio is all about. And it ain't being the good guy.
"It was like, 'How do you fool anyone who knows anything about the story with a con artist that is Mysterio?'" McKenna admitted to Yahoo Entertainment in an interview about the hit sequel this week.
"And even if people know, you still have to do your due diligence," Sommers added. "If it's con, you still have to put your best foot forward in that first half of the movie, when he's being this fake person and he's tricking everyone."
Thus why the film's creative team leaned into the idea of a multiverse. One of Far From Home's greatest cons came with the release of an advance film clip, which included footage of Mysterio claiming to be from an alternate dimension. It's all a put-on by Mysterio, who has emotionally seduced Peter in order to secure his late mentor Tony Stark's uber-potent A.I. system EDITH.
"You're playing on the audience's desire for a multiverse. Everyone wants a multiverse," McKenna said.
It helped that the concept had just been explored in last year's animated, Oscar-winning hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. "That probably helped us win over a lot of people, who maybe would've immediately assumed he was a bad guy," Sommers explained.
The film's greatest twist, however, comes in its final seconds – after the end credits – when we learn that that wasn't actually Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) who'd also been fooled by the conniving Mysterio. It was our old friends from Captain Marvel, the shape-shifting Skrulls Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) and Soren (Sharon Blynn).
"That was an [idea that came from director Jon Watts] that was floated for a long time," McKenna said. "One final con artistry trick… The best con artist movies always have that final twist at the end.
"I thought it was a great idea because you could have one final twist and also dispel everything you've seen up to that point and make you question everything you've seen."
If you thought you picked up on some hints that Fury and Hill were not "themselves," you were probably mistaken, though.
"We didn't write [them] any differently, though," Sommers explained. "Again, if you're trying to pull a con, you have to make things as authentic as possible before you pull the rug out. We wanted Peter and everyone to believe that this is Nick Fury, we wanted the audience to believe it was Nick Fury. So we wrote him exactly the same."
Spider-Man: Far From Home is now playing.
Watch Jake Gyllenhaal talk about taking on Mysterio:
Read more on Yahoo Entertainment:
Your guide to the Easter eggs and end-credit scenes in 'Spider-Man: Far From Home'
Jake Gyllenhaal on almost playing Spider-Man and what he learned from 'Prince of Persia'
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