10 Things That Almost Completely Changed Spider-Man: Far From Home
In an alternative world Kraven the Hunter tracks Peter Parker across New Asgard.
Having now earned a billion dollars at the box office, the ninth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to hit that mark and the first Spider-Man to do so, Far From Home is a bona fide big hit - a fun, breezy adventure to close out the mega-franchise's third phase and point toward the direction of their fourth.
But, if Marvel and director Jon Watts had gone with some of the alternative decisions that they were considering along the way, then we could have been watching a very different Far From Home from the one audiences finally got.
From the moment that its predecessor Spider-Man: Homecoming hit cinemas right up until post-production on this instalment, hundreds of little changes happened to shape the movie into what it eventually became.
From alternative casting choices, rejected character designs, to scenes that were actually filmed and then cut from the movie, here are ten things that completely changed Spider-Man: Far From Home from the movie it could have been...
10. Returning Villains
Marvel loves a post-credits sting. Some of them are just little throwaway gags, but more often than not they're designed to expand the world and set up story threads to be picked up in later movies.
Homecoming's post-credits scene definitely falls into the latter category. In it the incarcerated Vulture, Adrian Toomes, is approached by fellow inmate, and his former criminal associate, Mac Gargan (in the comics, the supervillain Scorpion) demanding to know Spider-Man's real identity.
This seemed to promise that, unlike certain Marvel villains who are killed off at the conclusion of their story, Watts and his Spider-series weren't quite done yet with The Vulture. Sure enough, early cast announcements for Far From Home had Michael Keaton lined up to return to the role for the sequel.
In the end, Watts admitted that he sought for a place for Toomes in the story but couldn't find one, adding that he is still out there and may well yet have a part to play in Spider-Man's story going forward.
But how could the movie have been different if Spider-Man had to tangle once again with this familiar foe? Would The Vulture have sided with fellow "Tony Stark screwed me over" villain Quentin Beck? Or might we have got the classic sequel story of a hero teaming up with their former foe to take down a bigger bad?
And how might Far From Home's own post-credits reveal effect the potential for Scorpion to appear again now that he knows the answer to his question about Spidey's secret identity?