Marvel Studios has three movies heading to theaters this year, but they are all laying a little bit of groundwork for next summer's Avengers: Infinity War. The massive Marvel team up movie is expected to pit every MCU hero against Thanos (Josh Brolin), a lingering evil in this larger galaxy. As such, directors who are working on individual MCU movies are having a say in what's to come... and vice versa. Which is how Spider-Man: Homecoming director Jon Watts explained his involvement in not just HIS movie, but the Avengers movie, as well:
Yeah, everyone is aware of what's happening on all the other movies. So if one thing shifts, you make sure it doesn't have dramatic repercussions for your movie. But yeah, that's all on the Russos right now.
Jon Watts, while speaking with Fandango about all things Spider-Man: Homecoming, sounds a little bit like a protective parent keeping watch over his adopted kid. Unlike, say, Captain America: Civil War -- which had massive repercussions on the MCU, as a whole, by introducing major characters and tearing the Avengers in half -- Jon Watts' Spider-Man movie looks to be largely self-contained to its corner of Queens. Watts and his team have been saying that it's a ground-level look at a hero in the MCU, and the trailer shows Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) telling Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to leave the Big Bads to real superheroes, like the Avengers.
But Jon Watts has a point. Even a tiny pebble dropped into the lake that is the MCU creates a ripple, and there's no way for that ripple NOT to affect the larger plans for a hero like Spider-Man. Tom Holland's Peter Parker is a high school kid, and subsequent Spidey sequels are expecting to keep him in high school, where his innocence essentially informs his character. If the Russo Brothers all of a sudden made Spider-Man a mature warrior in the face of Thanos for Avengers: Infinity War, it would contradict all that Watts is trying to establish in Homecoming. The MCU thrives on continuity, so it's important for filmmakers like Jon Watts and James Gunn to have a say in how their heroes are treated in the grand Avengers game plan.
Catch up with Avengers: Infinity War filming with this great featurette on the launch of the sequel:
And hop over to the next page to see the latest trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming. It really is amazing!
