What You Need To Know About The Spider-Man: Far From Home Re-Release
This just in: Spidey's set to swing back into cinemas for an extra-special re-release.
The Daily Bugle didn't dish up this news, Sony Pictures did, announcing on August 19 that Spider-Man: Far From Home will return to theaters over Labor Day weekend (via The Hollywood Reporter).
The internet lost its collective cool over the announcement, social media saw a steep uptick in posts about the web-slinging superhero, and fans who caught Far From Home on the silver screen less than two months ago began racing to their favorite ticket-selling sites to secure their seats for the re-release. It's an understandable response — who wouldn't get hyped up about the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe installment scoring a re-release? — but it's also a little hasty. Before you make a mad dash to Fandango's homepage and furiously click through ticket selection, sit back, relax, and let us fill you in with everything you need to know about the Spider-Man: Far From Home re-release.
First and most importantly is the launch date. According to Variety, Spider-Man: Far From Home's re-release run will begin on Thursday, August 29. It's not clear how long Far From Home will stick around in cinemas for its second outing, though it appears that it may be a one-weekend-only engagement. Spidey fans would be wise to clear their schedules from Thursday to Sunday just to be safe.
Sony has confirmed that those in the U.S. and Canada will be able to attend the Spider-Man: Far From Home re-release in standard-format showings as well as in IMAX and large-format screenings, available at select locations. The studio has yet to announce details about a worldwide roll-out, but there is, as of now, no reason to believe that the re-release will be exclusive to North America. There are Spidey fans everywhere, after all.
Viewers might want to spend a little extra money on an IMAX ticket for the re-release of Spider-Man: Far From Home because it is indeed an extended cut of the theatrical version of the film. Sony has included four minutes of additional footage not shown in the original cut of Far From Home, which launched in theaters on July 2, so splurging on a large-format screening will give fans the chance to see the never-before-seen moments in stunning definition. The studio is keeping quiet about what this extra footage entails — which is standard protocol when it comes to protecting surprises and sealing off spoilers — but we have a few ideas regarding what fans might be able to expect to see.
The four minutes reportedly make up a single scene — "a new action scene," as Variety noted. Collider's Steve Weintraub speculated in a Twitter post that this sequence will take place ahead of the main action of Spider-Man: Far From Home, "from the beginning of the film before Europe trip." Weintraub also spoke with the director of Far From Home, Jon Watts, in a recent interview in which Watts opened up about the scenes left out of the theatrical cut of the movie.
Watts explained that one deleted scene involves Tom Holland's Peter Parker running around New York and completing errands before jetting off to Europe: "There's just this very simple thing where we had Peter doing errands, getting ready for his trip. And it's going back to Mr. Delmar's, the deli, that's been rebuilt since it was blown up in Homecoming. And he has this very Spider-Man list of things to do. It's like get his passport, get the dual head phone adapter so he can listen to music with MJ on a flight, take down a giant gang." He added that the Far From Home team put that scene together "as its own little short film of Peter's list of things to do."
Based on the intel Watts offered in his sit-down with Weintraub, it seems there's a solid chance that the four minutes of extra footage included in the Spider-Man: Far From Home re-release could be the scene in which Peter checks off all the items on his to-do list prior to his life-changing summer trip across the pond.
The one question that remains after learning all there is to know about the Spider-Man: Far From Home re-release is why Sony is doing it in the first place. While it's tough to say with complete certainty, it appears that Sony brass has taken a page out of Marvel's playbook with the Far From Home re-release and may be looking to push the film into an even higher tier of financial success. Earlier this year, Marvel Studios gave Avengers: Endgame a re-release that helped the film beat out James Cameron's Avatar to become the best-earning movie of all time. Far From Home, on the other hand, recently became Sony's most profitable movie ever, edging out Skyfall after grossing $1.109 billion at the global box office. The flick is sitting atop $376 million at the domestic box office, so it's plausible that Sony is aiming to send Far From Home past the $400 million domestic benchmark with the upcoming re-release.
In any case, the Spider-Man: Far From Home re-release is worth getting excited about. It may not feature much extra footage, but hey, at least it doesn't have a nightmarish CGI Hulk like the Avengers: Endgame re-release did.