Director Jon Watts Was Happy To Avoid Having Another Spider Bite Scene In Spider-Man: Homecoming
It's no news that Marvel Studios decided to forgo the traditional Spider-Man origin story for their (hopefully first) trilogy with Tom Holland, coupled with his appearances in "Captain America: Civil War," "Avengers: Infinity War," and "Avengers: Endgame." That being said, MCU Peter's origin did include many aspects of his well-known comic book beginnings.
When fans met Peter in the MCU, he's already been through his superhero transformation. While Uncle Ben is teased, the movies never take the time to walk the audience through Peter's traumatic past. Instead of reiterating Uncle Ben's death, Marvel Studios used Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) as parental figures in Peter's life, whose deaths impacted his journey to become the web-swinging superhero we all know and love.
However, Uncle Ben isn't the only thing the MCU omitted from Peter Parker's origin, as Marvel Studios never showed his iconic spider bite on screen. Trilogy director Jon Watts recently revealed why they chose to skip that part of Spider-Man's story.
Peter Parker's spider bite happened in the MCU, or did it?
Author Sean O'Connell's latest work, "With Great Power: How Spider-Man Conquered Hollywood during the Golden Age of Comic Book Blockbusters," dives into precisely that, how the web-slinger dominated the movie industry for nearly 20 years. The book covers all three Spidey franchises, revealing some new information on Tom Holland's movies.
For the book, O'Connell asked "Captain America: Civil War" writer Christopher Markus about Holland's superhero origins, wondering if his Peter Parker received his iconic spider bite on a class field trip. Markus replied, "I mean, God knows there would have to be something not unlike that, probably... But no, I wouldn't say... I mean, I think he was bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip. We never talked about that either, but I think that's what happened."
In a separate interview for the book with "Spider-Man: Homecoming" director Jon Watts, he gave his explanation, saying, "It was just so nice to skip past it and just deal with more with the repercussions... and just explore it from the perspective of someone else finding out about it and having a lot of questions."
Although the MCU decided to skip Spider-Man's traditional origins, they finely crafted one for themselves, having Aunt May deliver the iconic "with great power comes great responsibility" line during "Spider-Man: No Way Home." Fans are excited about the character's future in the MCU, which could see Peter get an adult job to fund his superhero persona. Comments left by Kevin Feige at the end of "Amazing Spider-Man" #6 reveal he loved Peter's time as a teacher and scientist, so that could be what's next for MCU Spidey.