Development Following the
November 2014 hacking of Sony's computers, emails between
Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman
Amy Pascal and president
Doug Belgrad were released, stating that Sony wanted
Marvel Studios to produce a new trilogy of Spider-Man films while Sony retained "creative control, marketing, and distribution". Discussions between Sony and Marvel broke down, and Sony planned to proceed with its own
slate of Spider-Man films. In May 2015,
Jonathan Levine,
Ted Melfi,
Jason Moore, the writing team of
John Francis Daley and
Jonathan Goldstein, and
Jared Hess were being considered to direct the film. On June 23, Marvel and Sony officially announced that Holland would star as Spider-Man and that Watts would direct the film. The Russos "were pretty vocal about [they] wanted for the part", pushing to cast an actor close to the age of Peter Parker to differentiate from the previous portrayals. They also praised Holland for having a dancing and gymnastics background. Watts was able to read the
Civil War script, talk with the Russos, and was on set for the filming of Spider-Man's scenes in that film. He was able to "see what they were doing with it" and provide "ideas about this and that", including what Peter's bedroom and wardrobe looked like "so that my movie transitions seamlessly with theirs". On joining the MCU and directing the film, Watts said he was excited to explore the "ground level" of the MCU, a world where characters like the Avengers exist but have only been depicted in previous films at "the Penthouse level of the Marvel world". Before getting the job of director, Watts created images of
Nick Fury as Peter's mentor in the story in early "mood reels" saying, "I don't know what the situation would be, but that would be a person he'd want to get in trouble with." Feige said the films of
John Hughes would be a major influence and that Peter's personal growth and development would be just as important as his role as Spider-Man. He noted that "at that age, in high school, everything feels like life or death". He also said that the film hoped to use one of
Spider-Man's rogues that have not
been seen in film yet, and that filming would begin in June 2016. In July 2015, it was reported that
Marisa Tomei had been offered the role of
May Parker, Peter's aunt. It was also revealed that Daley and Goldstein, after missing out on the director role, had begun negotiations to write the screenplay, and were given three days to present Marvel with their
pitch; both confirmed shortly after that they had reached a deal to write the screenplay. The pair had proposed a take on the character that was "diametrically opposed" to the previous Spider-Man films, creating a
laundry list of all the elements seen in those films and actively trying to avoid re-using them. They chose to focus on the high school aspects of the character rather than the "drama and weight of the tragedy that leads to the origin of Spider-Man". They felt this would differentiate him from the other MCU superheroes as well. Daley said the film was about Peter "finding his place" in the MCU, with the writing team wanting the film to focus on him "coming to terms with his new abilities and not yet being good with them, and carrying with him some real human fears and weaknesses", such as a fear of heights when he has to scale the
Washington Monument. Daley noted, "Even within the context of this movie, I don't think you would feel that fear of heights or even the vertigo the audience feels in that scene if you establish him as swinging from skyscrapers at the top of the movie." The writers also wanted to avoid the skyscrapers of
Manhattan because of how often they were used in the other films, and instead wrote the character into locations such as "the suburbs, on a golf course, the
Staten Island Ferry,
Coney Island, and even Washington, D.C." One of the first sequences they pitched was "seeing Spider-Man attached to a plane 10,000 feet up in the air, where he had absolutely no safety net. ... you're familiar with the sort of areas he's been in, [so] why not turn it on its head and make it something different that people haven't seen before?" The pair conceded that the film took a more grounded, "low-stakes" approach than previous films, which avoided having to explain why the Avengers were not helping, since a world-threatening problem would logically require the "big guys". Marvel encouraged Daley and Goldstein to express their own sense of humor in the script, with Daley saying, "When you're seeing the world through the eyes of a fun, funny kid, you can really embrace that voice, and not give him the cookie-cutter one-liners that you're so accustomed to hearing from Peter Parker." Inspired by their experiences working on
sitcoms, the writers also looked to create "a network of strong characters" to surround Peter with in the film. In October 2015, Watts said he was looking to make the film a
coming-of-age story to see the growth of Peter, citing ''
Can't Buy Me Love (1987), Say Anything... (1989), and Almost Famous'' (2000) as some of his favorite films in that genre. It was this aspect of the film that had initially got Watts interested in directing it, as he had already been looking to make a coming-of-age story when he heard that the new Spider-Man would be younger than previous incarnations. Watts re-read the original Spider-Man comics in preparation for the film, and "came to a new realization" about the character's original popularity, feeling that he introduced a new perspective to the comics that had already established "a crazy spectacular Marvel Universe ... to give a regular person's perspective on it". He felt that this was also the responsibility of this film since it had to introduce Spider-Man to the already established MCU. Specific comics that Watts noted as potential influences were
Ultimate Spider-Man (2000–2011) and
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane (2004–2009). In December, Oliver Scholl signed on to be the production designer for the film.
Pre-production Watts wanted to heavily pre-visualize the film, especially its action sequences, as he does on all his films. For
Homecoming, Watts worked with a team to "figure out the visual language for the action sequences and ... try stuff out before" filming began to help Watts practice given his lack of experience working on large-scale films. For the "web-slinging" sequences, Watts wanted to avoid the big "swoopy" camera moves that had been previously used and instead "keep it all as grounded as possible. So, whether it was shooting with a drone camera or a helicopter or a cable-cam, or even just handheld, up on a roof chasing after him, I wanted it to feel like we were there with him." In January 2016, Sony shifted the film's release date from July 28, 2017, to July 7, 2017, and said the film would be digitally remastered for
IMAX 3D in post-production.
J. K. Simmons expressed interest in reprising his role as
J. Jonah Jameson from
Sam Raimi's
Spider-Man films. In early March,
Zendaya was cast in the film as Michelle, and Tomei was confirmed as May Parker. The following month, Feige confirmed that characters from previous MCU films would appear, and clarified that the deal formed with Sony does not specify which characters can and cannot crossover. He noted that the sharing between the studios was done with "good faith" in order "to have more toys to play with as we put together a story", and that "the agreement was that it is very much a Sony Pictures movie... we are the creative producers. We are the ones hiring the actor, introducing him in [
Civil War], and then working right now on the script and soon to be shooting." Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman further added that Sony has final greenlight authority, but were deferring creatively to Marvel. At
CinemaCon 2016, Sony announced the title of the film to be
Spider-Man: Homecoming, a reference to the common high school tradition homecoming as well as the character "coming home" to Marvel and the MCU.
Tony Revolori – who had auditioned for Peter Parker – and
Laura Harrier joined the cast as classmates of Peter's, and Downey Jr. was revealed to be in the film as Stark. Watts noted that Stark "was always a part of" the film's story because of his interactions with Peter in
Civil War. Downey Jr. was paid $10 million for his involvement. Also in April,
Michael Keaton entered talks to play a villain, but dropped out of discussions shortly thereafter due to scheduling conflicts with the film
The Founder (2016). At this point,
John Leguizamo was approached to fill the role and entered negotiations to do so. Keaton soon reentered talks for the role after a change in schedule for
The Founder, which necessitated Marvel to ask Leguizamo if he would step away from the role in order to cast Keaton; Keaton closed the deal in late May. Marvel offered to cast Leguizamo in another role, which he considered "tiny" and declined.
Mark Hamill was interested in playing the film's villain in case Keaton turned down the offer, but Keaton reconsidered the offer in time. In June,
Michael Barbieri was cast as a friend of Peter's,
Kenneth Choi was cast as Peter's high school principal, and
Logan Marshall-Green was cast as another villain alongside Keaton's character, while
Donald Glover and
Martin Starr joined the cast in undisclosed roles. Watts said that he wanted the cast to reflect Queens as "one of [the] most diverse places in the world", with Feige adding that "we want everyone to recognize themselves in every portion of our universe. [With this cast] especially, it really feels like this is absolutely what has to happen and continue." This is also different from the previous films, which were "set in a lily-white Queens high school". Additionally, Marvel made a conscious decision to mostly avoid including or referencing characters who appeared in previous
Spider-Man films, outside of major ones like Peter and May Parker, and
Flash Thompson. This included the
Daily Bugle, with co-producer
Eric Hauserman Carroll saying, "We toyed with it for a while, but again, we didn't want to go down that road right away, and if we do do a
Daily Bugle, we want to do it in a way that feels contemporary". This also included the character
Mary Jane Watson, but Zendaya's Michelle was eventually given the initials "MJ" as a nod to that character. Feige said that the point of this is "to have fun with [references] while at the same time having it be different characters that can provide a different dynamic". Spider-Man's costume in the film has more technical improvements than the previous suits, including the logo on the chest being a remote drone, an
AI system similar to Stark's
J.A.R.V.I.S., a holographic interface, a parachute, a tracking device for Stark to track Peter, a heater, an airbag, the ability to light up, and the ability to augment reality with the eyepieces. Stark also builds in a "training wheels" protocol, to initially limit Peter's access to all of its features. Carroll noted Marvel went through the comics and "pull[ed] out all the sort of fun and wacky things the suit did" to include in the
Homecoming suit. Spider-Man's web-shooters have various settings, first teased at the end of
Civil War, which Carroll explained allowed him to "adjust the spray" to different settings like the spinning web, web ball, or ricochet web. He compared this to a
DSLR camera.
Filming Principal photography began on June 20, 2016, at
Pinewood Atlanta Studios in
Fayette County, Georgia, under the
working title Summer of George.
Salvatore Totino served as director of photography. Filming also took place in
Atlanta, with locations including
Grady High School,
Downtown Atlanta, the
Atlanta Marriott Marquis,
Piedmont Park, the
Georgia World Congress Center, and the
West End neighborhood. Holland said building New York sets in Atlanta was cheaper than actually filming in New York, a location closely associated with the character, though the production may "end up [in New York] for one week or two". A replica of the Staten Island Ferry was built in Atlanta, with the ability to open and close in half in 10 to 12 seconds and be flooded with 40,000 gallons of water in 8 seconds. Additional filming also occurred at two
magnet schools in the
Van Nuys and
Reseda neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Casting continued after the start of production, with the inclusion of
Isabella Amara,
Jorge Lendeborg Jr.,
Josie Totah,
Hannibal Buress,
Selenis Leyva,
Abraham Attah,
Michael Mando,
Tyne Daly,
Garcelle Beauvais,
Tiffany Espensen, and
Angourie Rice in unspecified roles, with
Bokeem Woodbine joining as an additional villain. At
San Diego Comic-Con in 2016, Marvel confirmed the castings of Keaton, Zendaya, Glover, Harrier, Revolori, Daly, and Woodbine, while revealing Zendaya, Harrier, and Revolori's roles as Michelle,
Liz Allan, and
Flash Thompson, respectively, and announcing the casting of
Jacob Batalon as Ned.
Lewis Pullman also auditioned for Ned. It was also revealed that the
Adrian Toomes / Vulture would be the film's villain, while the writing teams of Watts and
Christopher Ford, and
Chris McKenna and
Erik Sommers, joined Goldstein and Daley in writing the screenplay, from Goldstein and Daley's story. Eric Pearson, a member of Marvel Studios' writing program who had written the
Marvel One-Shot films, did uncredited work on the film as well. Watts praised Goldstein and Daley's drafts as "really fun and funny", and said that they "sort of established the broad strokes of the movie", with him and Ford, close friends since childhood, then re-writing the script based on specific ideas that Watts had and things that he wanted to film, which he said was a "pretty substantial structural pass, rearranging things and building it into the sort of story arc we wanted it to be". McKenna and Sommers then joined the film to deal with changes to the script during filming, as "it's all a little bit flexible when you get to set. You try things out, and you just need someone to be writing while you're shooting." Harrier noted that the young actors in the film "constantly refer to ourselves as
The Breakfast Club". Shortly after,
Martha Kelly joined the cast in an unspecified role. In August,
Michael Chernus was cast as
Phineas Mason / Tinkerer, while
Jona Xiao joined the cast in an unspecified role, and Buress said he was playing a gym teacher. By September 2016,
Jon Favreau was reprising his role as
Happy Hogan from the
Iron Man series, and filming concluded in Atlanta and moved to New York City. Locations in the latter city included
Astoria, Queens;
Sunnyside, Queens;
St. George, Staten Island;
Manhattan; and
Franklin K. Lane High School in
Brooklyn. Additionally,
UFC fighter
Tyron Woodley said he had been considered for a villain role in the film, but had to drop out due to a prior commitment with
Fox Sports. Principal photography
wrapped on October 2, 2016, in New York City, with some additional filming taking place later in the month in Berlin, Germany, near the
Brandenburg Gate.
Post-production In November 2016, Feige confirmed that Keaton would play Adrian Toomes / Vulture, while Woodbine was revealed as
Herman Schultz / Shocker. In March 2017, Harrier said the film was undergoing re-shoots, and Evans was set to appear as Steve Rogers / Captain America in an instructional fitness video. Watts was inspired by
The President's Fitness Challenge for this, feeling that Captain America would be the obvious version of that for the MCU. He then started brainstorming other
public service announcements (PSA) starring Captain America, about "just anything you could think of, we had poor Captain America do it". Watts said that many of the additional PSA videos would be featured on the home media of the film. According to Goldstein, additional videos featuring other
Avengers were planned at some point. Watts confirmed that the company Stark creates that leads Toomes on his villainous path in the film is
Damage Control, which Watts felt "just fit in with our overall philosophy with the kind of story we wanted to tell" and created a lot of practical questions Watts wanted to use "to drive the story". The film features multiple
post-credit scenes. The first gives the Vulture a chance at redemption, showing him protect Peter from another villain. Watts said this "was a really interesting thing in the development of the story. You couldn't just rely on the tropes of the villain being a murderer and killing a bunch of people. He had to be redeemable in some capacity in the end and that he believes everything he said, especially about his family." The second post-credits scene is an additional Captain America PSA, where he talks about the value of patience—a
meta-referential joke at the expense of the audience, who have just waited through the film's credits to see the scene. This was a "last-minute addition" to the film. Watts completed work on
Homecoming at the beginning of June 2017, approving the final visual effects shots. He stated that he had never been told that he could not do something by Marvel or Sony, saying, "You assume you'll have to fight for every little weird thing you wanna do, but I didn't really ever run into that. I got to do kind of everything I wanted to." That month, Starr explained that he was playing the academic decathlon coach at Peter's high school, and Marshall-Green was said to be portraying another Shocker. In July, Feige discussed specific moments in the film, including an homage to
The Amazing Spider-Man vol. 1
issue 33 (1966) where Peter is trapped underneath rubble, something Feige "wanted to see in a movie for a long, long time". Daley said that they added the scene to the script because of how much Feige wanted it, and explained, "We have [Peter] starting the scene with such self-doubt and helplessness, in a way that you really see the kid. You feel for him. He's screaming for help, because he doesn't think he can do it, and then ... he kind of realizes that that's been his biggest problem." Feige compared the film's final scene, where Peter accidentally reveals that he is Spider-Man to his Aunt May, to the ending of the first MCU film
Iron Man (2008) when Stark reveals that he is Iron Man to the world, saying, "What does that mean for the next movie? I don't know, but it will force us to do something unique." Goldstein added that it "diminishes what is often the most trivial part of superhero worlds, which is finding your secret. It takes the emphasis off that [and] lets her become part of what's really his life." Feige also talked about the film's revelation that the Vulture is the father of Peter's love interest, feeling that if it did not work, the film would not work. The team "worked backwards and forwards from that moment ... You had to believe that we had set it up so that you would buy it [and it] doesn't seem like something out of left field". Watts said the revelation scene and the following interactions between the Vulture and Peter were, "more than anything else, [what] I was looking forward to, and I got to have a lot of fun shooting that stuff". Goldstein said the scene after the reveal, where Vulture realizes that Peter is Spider-Man while driving him to the school dance, was the moment he was most proud of in the film, and Daley said that scene's effect on audiences was the dramatic equivalent of an audience laughing at a joke they had written. He added that the writers were "giddy when we first came up with [that twist], because it's taking the obvious tension of meeting the father of the girl that you have a crush on, and multiplying it by 1,000, when you also realize he's the guy you've been trying to stop the whole time".
Visual effects Visual effects for the film were completed by
Sony Pictures Imageworks,
Industrial Light & Magic,
Luma Pictures,
Digital Domain,
Cantina Creative, Iloura, Trixter, and
Method Studios. Executive producer
Victoria Alonso initially did not want Imageworks, which worked on all previous Spider-Man films, to work on
Homecoming, in order to give it a different look than those earlier films. She changed her mind after seeing what she called "phenomenal" test material from the vendor. The film's main-on-end title sequence was designed by
Perception. scan of
Grand Central Terminal from
The Avengers to help create their CGI version (bottom), adding to the elements filmed on set (top). Trixter contributed over 300 shots for the film, including the opening scene at
Grand Central Terminal, the sequence that retells the events of
Civil War from Peter's perspective, the sequence where Toomes takes Liz and Peter to the dance, the school battle between Peter and Schultz, and the scene around and within the Avengers compound. They also worked on both Spider-Man suits and the spider tracer. Trixter created additional salvage workers to populate the Grand Central scene, whose clothes and proportions were able to be altered to create variation. For the battle between Peter and Schultz, Trixter used an all-digital Spider-Man in his homemade suit, which came from Imageworks, with Trixter applying a rigging, muscle, and cloth system to it "to mimic the appearance of the rather loose training suit". They also created the effects for Schultz's gauntlets and had to change the setting from the Atlanta set to Queens, by using a CGI school and adding 360 degrees of matte paintings for the mid to far-distance elements. Trixter received concept art and basic geometry that was used previously for the Avengers compound, but ended up remodeling it for the way it appears in
Homecoming. Models and textures for Spider-Man's Avengers costume were created by
Framestore for use in a future MCU film, with Trixter creating the vault that it appears in. Trixter VFX supervisor Dominik Zimmerle said the idea was "to have a clean, high tech, presentation Vault for the new suit. It should appear distinctively 'Stark' originated". Digital Domain worked on the Staten Island Ferry battle, creating the CGI versions of Spider-Man, the Vulture suit, Iron Man, and Spider-Man's drone. Digital Domain was able to
LIDAR an actual Staten Island Ferry, as well as the version created on set, to help with creating their digital version. Lou Pecora, visual effects supervisor at Digital Domain, called that sequence "brutal" because "the way they were shot, it was lit to be a certain time of day, and afterwards it was decided to change that time of day". Sony Pictures Imageworks created much of the third act of the film when Peter confronts Toomes on the plane and beach in his homemade suit, and Toomes is in an upgraded Vulture suit. Some elements of Vulture's first suit were shared with Imageworks, but the remainder were created by them "based on a maquette". For the plane's cloaking ability, Imageworks was inspired by
Adaptiv IR Camouflage tank cloaking system by
BAE Systems, which "uses a series of titles to cloak against infrared". For their web design, which was based on the one created for
Civil War, Digital Domain referenced polar bear hair because of its translucent nature. Imageworks also looked to the
Civil War webs, as well as to those they had created for previous Spider-Man films, in which "the web[s] had [...] tiny barbs that aided in hooking on to things". For this film, they "dialed back the barbs" to line up more closely with the other web designs created for this film. Method Studios worked on the Washington Monument sequence. Iron Man's armor in the film, the Mark XLVII, is a recolored version of the MK XLVI armor introduced in
Civil War; this was done because Sony did not have the budget to create a new Iron Man suit. Feige requested the color scheme resemble the
Ultimate Iron Man armor from the comics. == Music ==