SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING Was Originally Set To Feature This MCU Character In Place Of Iron Man
While Iron Man has always been an obvious choice to join the wall-crawler in Spider-Man: Homecoming, director Jon Watts has revealed that Tony Stark wasn't the hero he envisioned as Peter Parker's mentor.
When Marvel teamed up with Sony to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the deal was that Sony would be allowed to use characters from the MCU in the wall-crawler's solo adventures in exchange for him appearing in the likes of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. When presented with a list of heroes for Spider-Man: Homecoming, it's easy to see why they'd want box office draw Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man but things could have gone much, much differently.
In a piece over at io9, director Jon Watts reveals that he initially envisioned Nick Fury as Peter Parker's mentor, something which likely won't surprise fans of both the Ultimate Spider-Man comic/cartoon.
"Interestingly, while Tony was the obvious choice, especially after the events of Civil War, Watts created images of Nick Fury as the mentor in the story in early 'mood reels' before getting the job. 'I don’t know what the situation would be,' he said. 'But that would be a person he’d want to get in trouble with.'"
Fury would have been an interesting choice but given his status in the MCU following the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron, it probably makes more sense for Marvel to reintroduce him in Avengers: Infinity War than to have him pop up out of the blue (sans S.H.I.E.L.D.) as a mentor to the young hero.
Do you think Nick Fury would have been a better choice for Spider-Man: Homecoming than Iron Man?
About The Author:
A lifelong comic book fan who grew up on Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the '90s, Josh Wilding has been contributing to ComicBookMovie.com since 2009.
While he's also written for websites like Batman-News, HeyUGuys, and WhatCulture, Josh is CBM's Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and the site's #1 contributor with nearly two decades of experience covering film and TV news (including interviews with Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Gary Oldman, Halle Berry, Jon Bernthal, Tom Welling, and hundreds more).
Based in the UK with his wife, Josh is also an avid WWE and Formula 1 fan and writes about those passions on CBM's sister sites, TheRingReport.com and FullThrottleHQ.com. Favourite superhero? Spider-Man. Favourite pro wrestler? CM Punk. Favourite F1 driver? Max Verstappen.