If Spider-Man: Far From Home‘s mid-credits scene shook the very foundations of July’s summer tentpole, then the post-credits sequence threatened to pull the rug out from under us.
All along, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) weren’t really Fury and Hill, after all, but Skrulls – specifically Talos and Soren, characters who were initially introduced during Captain Marvel earlier this year. No one predicted such a deft twist; if anything, the majority of Marvel fans thought sure that Kevin Feige and Co. would plant some form of teaser for MCU Phase 4. Alas, that grand reveal was reserved for San Diego Comic-Con. And what a reveal it was.
Nevertheless, similar to how Gwyneth Paltrow was kept in the dark about her role in a Spider-Man movie, Far From Home‘s endgame twist completely blindsided Smulders… despite her being in the actual movie. Here’s what she told The Hollywood Reporter:
It was added. I don’t know if it was necessarily at the eleventh hour, I don’t know when they thought of it. It was a surprise to me. I bumped into Kevin Feige at a party and he said, ‘I gotta tell you something about what’s happening.’ I was excited, but I was also confused. I asked, ‘Well, where is she? What’s she up to?’
Asked straight-up if Maria Hill has been a Skrull this entire time – a long-running fan theory, as you’ll no doubt recall – Smulders admitted that she doesn’t quite know what Marvel has planned. But in her eyes, Soren only disguised herself as the Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. for the events of Far From Home… and not a minute more.
Anything is possible. They could change it to be that way, but in my mind: no. I don’t know where she is, but my hope is that she’s on vacation somewhere. In this world, she’s probably just on some other mission.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is still playing across theaters worldwide and recently became the third Marvel Studios movie of 2019 to cross $1 billion at the global box office.