Spider-Man: Far From Home was replete with fun little surprise references for longtime fans of the webbed superhero. One of the most delightful surprises though was the appearance of J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson during the end credits, dropping a truth bomb on the MCU and turning audience expectations upside down by revealing to the whole world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
Fans were delighted to see Simmons reprise his role as Jameson, a character he’d originally played to great acclaim in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, starring Tobey Maguire. Now, Raimi himself has provided his reaction to one of his most popular characters from the original Spidey films officially joining the MCU. And he could not be more thrilled.
According to Raimi, Simmons had called to tell him that the people at Marvel were talking to him about reprising his role for Far From Home, and the director was immediately on board with the idea. As a huge fan of Spider-Man and what Simmons had done for the character of Jameson, he was only too happy to see more of him in the latest cinematic outing for the hero.
“J.K. called me and said, ‘Hey, they’re talking about reprising my role. I said, ‘With all my greatest blessings,’ ‘cause I love Spider-Man and I love J.K. and I’d love to see more of him.”
Screenwriters for Spider-Man: Far From Home, Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna stated that they’d always talked about Simmons becoming Jameson in the MCU as well. This take on the character reimagines him as an Alex Jones-style journalist who runs the website DailyBugle.net and frequently peddles fake news. And a movie where Mysterio is the main villain, who confuses the entire population with his illusions, was considered the perfect entry point for the introduction of Jameson and his brand of misleading journalism.
It remains to be seen what kind of an effect the bombshell dropped by JJJ in Spider-Man: Far From Home will have for the rest of the MCU, but we’re certainly hopeful we haven’t seen the last of him.
