because superheroes already exist in this world. The Avengers exist. So we don’ t have to tell any of that story. We can just have fun with“ what if a 15-year-old became a superhero?” What would that be like? But I mean he still has to shoot webs. That’ s like that’ s about it – he’ s got to shoot webs.
Q: When you started on Homecoming, did you make a list of things that you were not going to do? And then were there things that are just so inherent to Spider- Man that you knew you would have to include, and would just have to come up with a more clever way to incorporate them into your version?
Watts: That’ s what we tried to do with everything. Like if anything seemed familiar, we tried to come up with something else. The reason to make this movie is to show people things they’ ve never seen before and to take them on a journey that they’ ve never been on before. So that was actually a great creative limitation, to make everything new. Spider-Man still had to shoot webs and swing around every once in awhile, but then you would come up with, well, what haven’ t we seen Spider- Man do? Let’ s take away buildings. Let’ s throw him in the suburbs and see what he has to do, if he has to go from rooftop to rooftop. Or send him to Washington DC, make him climb up the side of the Washington Monument. What are you going to do then when there’ s only one building? What’ s that going to look like? So that was the fun challenge, to just keep trying to come up with something we haven’ t seen before and keep pushing that.
Q: What was your first experience with Spider-Man? Was there specific material that helped shape the landscape of the world your Spider-Man was going to inhabit?
Watts: Well, I immediately just went back and started reading the comics from the very beginning when I got the job, [ and ] that was just a great cornerstone for what we were trying to build because it’ s a reminder of why Spider-Man became so popular in the first place. And sure all these other people are dealing with these life threatening or world threatening stakes, but one of the first things that Peter Parker does in the comics is he goes to try and join the Fantastic Four because he needs to make some money. It’ s just problems that a teen would have. So that was a great starting off point just in terms of the tone, because it was funny and irreverent and just its own unique perspective. And in terms of the visual language, I just was trying to apply my style to this universe and again keeping with this whole groundlevel perspective. I wanted this movie [ to be ] on the ground with Peter; it’ s like you’ re up in the clouds with Tony, and now here you are down in the dirt with Peter.
Q: How tough was it to find your own way of depicting