Spider-Man: Far From Home features a lot of great moments, but it probably saves its most fan-pleasing scene until the end. The mid-credits sequence of the movie drops the bombshell that Mysterio has shared a video to the press that frames Spidey for the attack on London. What’s more, his secret identity is outed as Peter Parker by none other than J. Jonah Jameson, with J.K. Simmons reprising his iconic role.
While speaking to Collider, director Jon Watts spilled the beans on how this jaw-dropping cameo came about. He revealed that it was always the plan to bring Jameson back this way, though Simmons himself was only contacted at the last minute to avoid it leaking out. Thankfully, the idea of Jonah getting to out Parker as the public menace that he is was enough to convince him to return.
“That was always the plan because we knew that we wanted to reveal Peter’s identity, and we wanted to bring in this idea of the news and not being sure exactly what you can believe or not believe. And it was always going to be him, but we didn’t want to say anything to him or to anyone because we didn’t want any press to leak out about it, via his agents or whatever. So we waited until the very, very last second and called him up, and he came by and he was, ‘Wait, what? You want me to do what?’ It took him a second to understand, but as we pitched the idea he was totally on board and he really loved getting to be the person who finally outs Peter Parker.”
Watts then went on to open up about how the scene was filmed, admitting that he spoiled the first take with Simmons as he was so stoked to be directing the actor as the character.
“Very, very late in the process. It was as late as possible basically. We just set up a green screen in the conference room at Disney and he just came by. It was very strange for him too, because the first take he just launches right into that iconic character and I ruined the take because I couldn’t stop laughing. It was so amazing.”
Fans have been waiting for the star of the original Spider-Man trilogy to make a comeback as Jonah for years now, so it’s a serious treat to have him in the MCU. Hopefully he’s going to appear in a bigger role in Spider-Man 3, but even if he doesn’t, this cameo would be a neat way to bookend his portrayal of the character as he’s finally foiled his sworn enemy.