One of the major ways in which Spider-Man: Homecoming bucked the trends set up in previous Spidey movies was to completely ignore the death of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, which is usually the tragic event that drives him into becoming a superhero. The most overt reference to it in the film was when Peter briefly alluded to “everything that’s happened” at one point, but other than that, it was completely skipped over.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the movie’s screenwriter, John Francis Daley, confirmed that this line did refer to Uncle Ben’s loss and that the character’s usual backstory is still in play in the MCU. In fact, there was originally a scene where Ben was referenced but ultimately, it didn’t sit right with the rest of the film.
“We did talk about there being a scene where [May] references him directly. It was when [Peter] was getting ready for homecoming and the wardrobe she was giving Peter was all Uncle Ben’s clothes. It was a nice moment, but we also knew that it veered away from his arc. If you’re going to talk about someone’s death, you don’t want it to be a throwaway.”
We don’t know exactly when Ben died, but it seems to have been long enough ago that Peter and Aunt May are getting on with their lives by the time of Homecoming. In the original drafts of the script, May was even dating again. Said Daley:
“In an early draft we actually even had her dating a guy, and part of her relationship with Peter was this inappropriate frankness. It didn’t make the cut, but I could see in the sequel she could get a boyfriend. She doesn’t have to be a mourning widow.”
After Captain America: Civil War arrived, many fans thought it could be fun to pair up May with Tony Stark, since the billionaire clearly took a shine to her. However, Homecoming revealed that Tony was back together with Pepper, so it looks like the book has now been closed on that potential romance.
Though not terribly revealing, Daley’s comments here are certainly intriguing and we look forward to seeing if Uncle Ben is ever referenced or what May’s love life has in store when the sequel, tentatively titled Spider-Man: Homecoming 2, arrives on July 5th, 2019.
