Warning: spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Homecoming! Read at your own risk!
Pop quiz, hot shot: what's Peter Parker's coolest superpower? There are plenty of solid answers to choose from, but I'm willing to bet that many of you are thinking of his ability to cling to walls. Spider-Man can climb anywhere and everywhere that a spider can (at least, that's what his classic theme song says), and Spider-Man: Homecoming arguably does a better job of conveying that idea than any other Spidey film to date. In fact, one of the most impressive sequences in the movie involves Peter crawling along the ceiling of his Queens bedroom, but it turns out that the process of pulling that scene off was far more intensive than any of us ever realized. Homecoming director Jon Watts elaborated:
It was really hard for Tom because he has he's wearing a harness underneath his suit that attaches him to a pick point. That goes up to a kind of pulley system controlled by stunt guys that allowed him to slide along the ceiling with this harness holding him. It was insane coordination on every level between the stunt coordinators, the camera operators and Tom.
The sequence in question plays out like this: Peter Parker has had a rough night Spider-Manning around town. Upon his arrival home, he sneaks into his window and (in one take) creeps along the ceiling to return to his normal life as a nerdy teenager. However, it turns out that he's not alone in the room, and he finds that his unsuspecting friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) is waiting for him. It's a beautifully executed scene, but the actual process of pulling it off required near surgical precision from everyone involved.
If nothing else, Jon Watts' comments to The New York Times about the complicated nature of this scene show us just how far we have come since Spider-Man's earlier years on the silver screen. Even during the Sam Raimi years, the film crews used comparatively old-fashioned techniques in which Tobey Maguire's version of the Web Head would crawl along the ground towards a tilted camera.
Having said that, if any Marvel Cinematic Universe actor is going to pull off some high-flying acrobatics in a scene such as this, then it's going to be Tom Holland. The 21-year-old actor is a classically trained dancer (which you know if you've seen his excellent Lip Sync Battle routine), and he actually landed the role of Peter Parker by showing off his borderline insane abilities as a gymnast. Getting into that harness and crawling along the ceiling was obviously no walk in the park for Holland, but the young actor likely had an easier time than most of us would if we had to do it.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is currently in theaters, and Peter Parker will make his next major MCU appearance during Avengers: Infinity War. If you're looking for more information related to the rest of 2017's theatrical debuts, check out our movie premiere guide.
