Spider-Man
Peter Benjamin Parker
Movie · Phase 3
Spider-Man: Homecoming
2017 · 133 min
Peter Parker is fifteen, has an internship cover story and cannot get Happy Hogan to return a call. He stops bike thefts in Queens and waits for the Avengers to need him, while a salvage contractor…
The Infinity SagaDisney+92%Released
The story
Peter Parker is fifteen, has an internship cover story and cannot get Happy Hogan to return a call. He stops bike thefts in Queens and waits for the Avengers to need him, while a salvage contractor Tony Stark put out of business in 2012 builds a wing harness and starts selling Chitauri weapons out of a truck.
It is the smallest Spider-Man film ever made and the best-judged: a John Hughes high-school comedy in which the villain turns out to be your date's father, and the hero's lowest point is being buried under rubble crying for help with nobody coming.
Key facts
- Release date
- 7 Jul 2017
- Status
- Released
- Phase
- Phase 3
- Saga
- The Infinity Saga
- Runtime
- 133 min
- Certificate
- PG-13
- Director
- Jon Watts
- Writers
- Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers
- Streaming
- Disney+
- Timeline placement
- 2016 — a few months after Civil War, though the film's on-screen '8 years later' card is an acknowledged continuity error
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Tom Holland | Peter Parker / Spider-Man |
| Michael Keaton | Adrian Toomes / Vulture |
| Robert Downey Jr. | Tony Stark |
| Marisa Tomei | May Parker |
| Jacob Batalon | Ned Leeds |
| Zendaya | Michelle 'MJ' Jones |
| Jon Favreau | Happy Hogan |
Characters
Easter eggs
- Donald Glover's Aaron Davis mentions he has a nephew in the neighbourhood — Miles Morales, whose uncle is the Prowler in the comics.
- Stan Lee cameos as Gary, a Queens resident yelling out of a window at Spider-Man for setting off a car alarm.
- Damage Control, the salvage-and-cleanup company that squeezes Toomes out, is a real Marvel Comics organisation and returns in Ms. Marvel.
- Michael Mando appears as Mac Gargan with a scorpion tattoo, planting the Scorpion — a thread finally picked up in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
- Captain America's cringeworthy school PSA videos are a running gag, and a deleted-scene version appears again in Endgame.
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off plays literally on a classroom TV, signposting the film's John Hughes template.
- Toomes' wings, talons and flight harness are salvaged Chitauri tech, tying his origin directly to the Battle of New York.
- The Shocker mantle passes from Jackson Brice to Herman Schultz after Brice is vaporised, a compressed version of the comics' Shocker lineage.
Trivia
- Tom Holland attended a Bronx public high school undercover for a few days under an assumed name to research the role.
- It is the first Spider-Man film produced under the Sony-Marvel co-production arrangement struck in 2015.
- Jon Watts pitched the film as a John Hughes teen comedy, and Marvel hired him off the low-budget thriller Cop Car.
- Michael Keaton's casting deliberately courted the Birdman association, and a line about wings was reportedly cut for being too on the nose.
- Marisa Tomei's much younger Aunt May was a conscious reset of a character usually played as elderly.
- Holland trained as a gymnast and dancer at the BRIT School and played the title role in Billy Elliot the Musical, which is why he performs so much of the physical work.
- The ferry sequence was shot on the real Staten Island Ferry with a partial practical split before digital extension.
Box office
- Budget
- $175 million
- Worldwide
- $880.2 million
- Domestic
- $334.2 million
Reviews
Critics
92%
Spider-Man: Homecoming does whatever a second Spider-Man reboot can, delivering a colourful, fun adventure that fits snugly in the MCU without getting bogged down in franchise-building.
The MarvelGossips verdict
The most enjoyable Spider-Man film and the least ambitious, which is exactly the correct trade after two origin stories in ten years. Keaton's Vulture is a working-class villain with a real grievance, and the car-reveal scene is the best acting in any Spider-Man movie. Tony Stark's mentorship is one film's worth of good idea stretched across three.
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Frequently asked
Is Miles Morales referenced in Homecoming?
Indirectly. Donald Glover's Aaron Davis mentions a nephew in Queens, which is a nod to Miles. Glover had also voiced Miles in Ultimate Spider-Man and fan-campaigned for the live-action role in 2010.
What is the '8 years later' error?
A title card places the film eight years after the Battle of New York, which would make it 2020 and break the timeline. Marvel's official Timeline book corrects the film to 2016, and Kevin Feige has acknowledged the card as a mistake.
Who is Mac Gargan?
A criminal who appears briefly with a scorpion neck tattoo, promising to get to Spider-Man. He is the Scorpion in the comics, and Michael Mando returns in the role in Spider-Man: Brand New Day in 2026.
Is Zendaya's MJ Mary Jane Watson?
No. Her character is Michelle Jones, who goes by MJ — a deliberate reworking rather than a direct adaptation. Marvel and Sony kept the reveal secret through release as a misdirection.