'Spider-Man: Homecoming' Set Visit: Everything We Learned

On August 22, 2016, I traveled to Atlanta to visit the set of Spider-man: Homecoming and learned a lot about the first solo adventure of Tom Holland's wall-crawling superhero. Let's run through everything you could possibly want to know.

Even though this movie is set to come out a year after the release of Captain America: Civil War, the film's opening takes place during the events of that film. In the movie's opening montage, Peter Parker goes on a whirlwind tour of Berlin, discovers the first class life, and has a lot of fun with his new suit.

The movie's actually story begins just under five months later, with Parker as a high school sophomore. Tom Holland explained that for Peter Parker, "It's almost like he went to summer camp and now he's back at school again." He elaborated:

"Here's this kid who goes on this adventure with Iron Man and all of the Avengers, and then suddenly he's stuck on the subway going back to school. It's a very fun thing to play; that sort of stroppy teenager after having the best time of his life. But there's definitely light at the end of the tunnel for Peter Parker."

When the film begins, Peter Parker has been Spider-Man for less than a year. There's a line in Civil War that got cut where he says, "the last four or six months, or something, crime had dropped by four or six percent" which implies when he started. Aside from the airport battle in Berlin, Spider-Man has not come up against any super-villains...until now.

Peter attends Midtown Technical High School, a public high school in Queens which requires a certain level of test scores to get into it. However, the kids at school make fun of Peter Parker (one of them calls him "Penis Parker"). They shot the exteriors at a school in Brooklyn (Franklin K. Lane), and the interiors were shot at a school in Atlanta (Grady High School).

Director Jon Watts wanted the world to look like a modern day high school and not like a movie high school. Producer Amy Pascal said that "He brought a modern day sensibility to it that I think was really fresh." Watts himself said that the high school atmosphere was "a big part" of his pitch for the movie:

"The very first thing I made was a look book of what I wanted the world to look like and what the kids should look like and the high school should look like. I lived in New York for thirteen years and it should look like a school in New York, it shouldn't look like a school in the Midwest in the 50s. So I pulled a bunch of pictures of kids and documentary photos of kids in schools, and that was part of my pitch and everyone was really into that and followed through with the casting, which is so, so cool. I love the kids."

One of the goals was to make it look like a real high school in Queens, and that meant casting a class full of diverse students. Pascal said it was really important "because it's the world that we live in. And we don't live in that other world anymore. And we needed to catch up with the way the world really is, and people who go to the movies and people want to see themselves and...it was too long. Too long. But, we did."

Co-Producer Eric Hauserman Carroll explained how the story was developed:

"We at Marvel start with something called the Discussion Document, where it's sort of like a Mission Statement. It's a 20 to 30-page document where we just go, 'This is what we think it is! This is what we think will be fun! Here's some cool characters!' We laid them all out and put all of the ones who had been in the movies before and Vulture just felt compatible with the MCU. When we sort of struck on the fun thematic thing of the Vulture being somebody who scavenges what the Avengers  and their enemies leave behind, we all just got really excited by that. But we told all of the writers and all of the directors who came in, 'Pitch us anything. It's one of these best-idea types of scenarios.' If someone came in with the greatest Doc Ock pitch of all time, then we were like, 'This is it! It feels new, it feels different, it feels MCU specific, we would have done it. But frankly, I think all but two people came in and pitched the Vulture to us. And we were excited. We were leaning that way anyway, but then we heard that idea that [Jonathan] Goldstein and [John Francis] Daley pitched, and we were like, 'Yeah, this is cool. It feels MCU. It feels unique. It feels like you haven't seen it before.'"

Spider-Man's origin story will not be explored in this movie, although the film will reference it. Uncle Ben is mentioned. The producers assured us that Spider-Man's origin story has not been changed in this new incarnation. They wanted to avoid retelling the story because they felt it would lock them into a structure of a movie that has already been made a couple of times. They won't even show a flashback to his origin because the audience already knows it well.

Spider-Man: Homecoming has been described as a real high school story – they want Spider-Man to be this complicated small world soap opera. This will be a story told from the ground-level. Even Peter Parker has a fear of heights, like anyone would standing on a multi-story building. We will not see him swing down 5th avenue in this movie or jump off a 40-story building. There is a bit of reluctance and we see him taking it in small steps, working his way up to the Spider-Man we know.

Peter Parker doesn't want to be Peter Parker. He knows that people love Spider-Man and would rather be him. But as he invests himself more into his alter ego, he leaves a lot of people in his personal life angry that he has abandoned them. As described to us, the theme of the film is Peter Parker having to come to acceptance of his place: "Who am I?" It's a coming of age story. It's him wanting desperately to be accepted by the cool kids, but then realizing that he is cool.

They have made a conscious decision not to include or mention anyone who has been in the past Spider-Man films outside of Peter, Flash and Aunt May. So don't expect to meet Harry Osborn or hear a mention of Oscorp. Their goal is for every frame of this to feel different from the previous incarnations.

Also, don't expect to see The Daily Bugle for this and a more logistical reason. As Eric Hauserman Carroll explained:

"We toyed with it for a while, but again, we didn't want to go down that road right away, and if we do do a Daily Bugle, we want to do it in a way that feels contemporary. Working in a newspaper while fighting crime and overachieving, it just felt like one of those things where like... maybe it's in his future? Maybe it's what he does in college or something like that. But for now, no."

Production designer Oliver Scholl says most of the film is set in Queens, with Manhattan looming in the background:

"It's a very conscious choice to say he is not in Manhattan. Manhattan stands for the big guys. It's always across the river. That's what he aspires to. That's where the Avengers Tower is across the river. Looming in the sunset. But he's not there. Yet."

As indicated by the most recent trailer, we will see Peter Parker in his homemade suit that we saw balled up in Civil War. The suit is really simple: goggles, sweatpants, a red hoody with a logo made in sharpie. Peter doesn't get his sexy close-up shots of getting in costume. Instead, it's super clumsy, as you'd expect from someone trying to put on a onesie in an ally.

The advanced Spider-Man suit that Tony Stark created is filled with cool technology that we didn't see in Civil War. As you saw in the trailer, the Spider-Man logo on the chest can be deployed as a remote drone. Most of the cool tech has been disabled as part of some safety systems, and Tony can track the suit via GPS.

There's a lot of practical Spider-Man in this movie, more than even the producers had expected going in. The suit plays very well in medium-to-wide shots, as well as close-ups that don't involve the moving eyes (which require CG). The filmmakers realized they can get away with more than they initially thought.

After Parker is able to deactivate the "Training Wheels" protocol, he discovers the suit has a voice operating system like Jarvis, although voice casting was not decided at the time we were on set. The suit also has a holographic interface. Says Carroll:

"Probably most notably, it starts talking to him, and he goes, 'Oh, this is weird.' And he starts asking it stuff, but he's not super slick or Tony Stark smart, who invented the OS and did all this. He's a kid. So he's like, 'Um, how do I get to where that thing is?' And it's like, 'Um, I don't know. Pretty much drive? How are you going to get there?' And he's like, 'Um, if I didn't have a car, let's just say, how would I get there?' And it's like, 'Well, if you walk...' And he's like, 'No, OK, alright... I guess just give me directions and I'll figure out the HOW I'm getting there.'"

One of the many differences in this version of Spider-Man is that the suit has a bunch of technological improvements, where the previous versions were more based in the result of the scientific accident of Spidey's origin. Carroll explained:

"Scientific accidents gave almost everyone their powers in all five of the previous ones. So when we looked to reinvent the movie, we looked at what sort of tact we could take. And one was that all of the MCU movies try to have this quasi-plausibility, you know what I mean? As much as we can... we try to make it feel like the world we live in. And we felt like if a kid is running around in a skin-tight suit with all of these cool features, it's probably going to be pretty high tech."

We will see Peter Parker inventing his web fluid, a scene we saw in the first teaser trailer. "That's a practical effect, by the way. A chemist helped us figure out what would melt good together to give us that length of [Laughter] webby fluid liquid. So that was something we actually shot," Carroll said.

The hologram we saw on the ceiling in the Civil War post-credits scene is part of the interface for his web shooters. Carroll explained:

"One of the ideas is that when he does this [movement] he can adjust the spray, and he can even scroll through different web settings, like spinning web, web ball, ricochet web... you know, all of the stuff we can see him do in the comics, Tony has built into this. That was sort of unlocked for him. So when he shines that, it will go [boom noise], and if he wants to shoot just the one swinging web, it will go down really small. And if he wants to web a guy to the wall, it goes [makes noise] and goes like that. It's kind of like a DSLR camera. He can shoot without it, or he can hold that thing a second, get his aiming right, and really choose a web to shoot."

Tom Holland's favorite new gadget in the tech suit involves augmented reality:

"My favorite gizmo that the suit has... there's a very funny sequence in the movie because of something he can do with his vision in the suit... he can sort of alter what he sees and how he sees things, and it's really funny to see. It's almost like the first time you play a video game and the controls are all funny, and it's really funny seeing him look like a badass, but inside panic and not know what to do."

As for how any of the tech works, don't ask Robert Downey Jr. Holland recalls that he was "doing that scene with Robert and I asked one of the prop guys, Can you walk me through what we're doing here? Because I was unscrewing a DVD player, and Robert was like, Dude, I don't know what Tony Stark does... [laughter] He's like, just act dude, you got this. It was great."

Michael Keaton plays a character named Adrian Toomes. He is like the evil version of Stark, a black market arms dealer. Explained producer Eric Hauserman Carroll:

"He is a businessman with a family. He wants to look out for his kids. He's got sort of a Tony Soprano mentality. He doesn't have these big delusions of grandeur where he wants to take over the world, or replace the government, or even defeat the Avengers or anything. He just wants his shot at the good life, and he thinks it's not fair that someone like Tony Stark can make a fortune selling weapons and find the light, turn away from that, and be looked upon as a hero and then even worse, help found – as you'll see – he gets paid to clean up the mess. ... So he's one of those guys. 'I'm doing some shady stuff, but I'm not really hurting anyone,' you know?"

Toomes is also sort of a mirror image of Peter. He's a really smart guy trying to make it in the world. He runs a salvage company and he thinks he's landed this giant contract to help clean up after the Battle of New York. He's leveraged himself to the hilt, hired extra men, and bought extra trucks so he's all in. A day into his work cleaning up after the events of the Battle of New York, this new organization no one's ever heard of called the Department of Damage Control shows up and says "We got this. You guys go home. Qualified personal are taking over." Damage Control wants to make sure the remnants of Chitauri technology are safe. This sends him over the edge a little bit and since he had scavenged a bit of this high-tech alien stuff, and along with some of the guys on his team, who are also very smart, he builds this wing suit. Amy Pascal says that Michael Keaton was the first and only person they wanted for this role.

Watts liked the idea that someone can become a villain and still be a regular person. He loves rooting the character in a believable background to keep it grounded. The Vulture has real motivations. Watts says no one wakes up wanting to be a villain. Keaton himself describes his character as "somewhat of a victim":

"He takes things in that he feels like a victim, and some of it is justified actually. He believes that there's an upper echelon of society of people who are getting away with a lot and have everything. And there's a whole lot of folks who are working hard, and don't have much. Does that sound familiar? To anybody, given the political climate? Which I think is an interesting way to go about this. [...] He runs salvage. He's a working guy. He's built this business, this company. He works hard.  And they took it from him."

One of the men on the Vulture's team is Herman Schultz (Bokeem Woodbine), who is known as "Shocker." Vulture makes fun of his pro wrestling-style nickname. Shocker has isolated yellow arms and a modified version of Crossbones' punch gauntlet.

Parker gets involved in Toomes' business operations when he attempts to stop a few men trying to rob an ATM with large high-tech guns. Tony tells him to stay out of it, and that he'll have a chance to become an Avenger once he has graduated from college. Walking home, he encounters a piece of technology that fell out of the van. Instead of calling Tony Stark he decides to investigate it himself. This leads him to Washington, DC, which we've seen in the trailers. Peter rejoins the track team so he can go on a trip to the country's capital. Parker's investigation causes problems for Toomes, who is not happy about it.

While Peter Parker's primary script and story arc has remained the same since Tom Holland was hired, he says that the arc for Toomes and the Vulture has changed quite drastically from the first draft, and for the better.

Keaton described Toomes crew:

"I think it's an assembly of people he's needed, just hired 'em on, and others that have loyalty. They're his boys, and they are like-minded. They are just his boys, you know? I really like the relationship with the Tinkerer – with [Michael Chernus]'s character – it's great. He's real funny, so we goof around a lot and make up very, very funny backstories. But they're funny, but then you think, 'Well, that's probably their relationship. They probably get on each other's nerves sometimes.' I have a lot of the ideas, and then I just say, "Go make that. Go make that for me. I want to have a thing that does all this stuff. Just go make that stuff for me." And he's great. I'm having a lot of fun in that relationship."

Toomes builds his wingsuit out of the alien tech he has scavenged and uses the suit to infiltrate sites locked down by Damage Control to steal more Chitauri leftovers.

The Vulture suit has a 34-foot wingspan – it's more like a vehicle than a costume. He has to step into the suit held on a gantry to get into it. The arms are mechanically controlled (i.e. he doesn't have to flap the wings to use it). The suit has a cocoon pod extraction which allows him to evacuate and get into more close quarters. He has a sleek fighter pilot-like helmet and mech boots that extend out into claws.

Zendaya plays a classmate named Michelle, who is one of Peter's best friends. They come from similar backgrounds. She is described by Tom Holland as being very quiet, and "she's always reading these crazy books, like how to murder someone without no one knowing."

Before production began, there were rumors that Zendaya was secretly playing Peter's love interest Mary Jane, but on set everyone denied it: "I promise you when the movie comes out her name is Michelle."

Amy Pascal admits that when she and Kevin Feige looked at her screen test, they didn't even know who she was:

"There was this girl, she was the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen and we were like looking at it and she was so fine and so smart and savvy and poised and she had no make-up on...and we just looked at it after we shot it and we were like, 'She's really fine.' And they were like, 'She's really famous.' But she's been blowing us away every day."

Jon Watts says he envisioned Michelle as being a version of Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club or what Linda Cardellini was like in Freaks and Geeks: "She has a really cool wardrobe, really funny, lots of literary nods. I like the idea that she's a real reader and bookish. She always has a big pile of books she's carrying around, which I picked and obsessed over."

Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark, a mentor who would rather Parker enjoy his high school years and stop playing the superhero. We learned that Stark has founded Damage Control. It is not just a cameo role – Downey appears in five or six scenes. The Tony Parker relationship is the beginning of a big brother-younger brother dynamic. Tony Stark wasn't originally supposed to appear in the film, but after they saw his interaction with Peter Parker in Civil War, they decided to make him a part of the story.Jon Favreau returns as Happy Hogan, the head of Stark Industries security. He acts as a go-between for Parker and Stark, with Peter always trying to get ahold of his friend, Tony. Peter is always calling Tony and leaving messages, wanting to be involved.Jacob Batalon plays Parker's friend Ned Leeds, who loves science and is trusted with Parker's big secret.Logan Marshall-Green plays one of Toomes' crew. Marvel and Disney have still not revealed his character's name, which has led to speculation that he may play a bigger role than anticipated. When we asked director Jon Watts about the character, he refused to give any information because "there's a lot of surprises and I don't want to spoil them."Laura Harrier plays Liz Allan, a classmate that Peter has a crush on. Described as a "type-A" personality, Liz is in charge of planning the Homecoming dance. Parker begins to hatch a plan to talk to her at Flash's party with the idea that he will convince her to talk to him under the guise that he knows Spider-Man.Marisa Tomei returns as Aunt May, whose relationship with Peter is more like an older sister than a parent. May is described as more rock 'n roll, while Peter is more robotics club.  Aunt May cooks a lot, but she's not good at it, so they often end up eating takeout from the Thai food restaurant downstairs.Donald Glover appears in the film, and no details have been revealed about his character. On set, no one would talk about who he was playing. At first, I assumed he signed on to appear in the movie in a small role as he was already working in Atlanta on Atlanta, but it seems like there may be more to it or at very least, they want to keep it a surprise.Tony Revolori plays Flash Thompson, another one of Parker's high school classmates.

Jon Watts was hired as the director after the producers watched his film Cop Car and were attracted to its almost Amblin-esque vibe. Producer Amy Pascal loves that Watts was able to tell a story through action with very little money: "He did a lot of things with $8,000 that some directors can't do with $80,000."

Watts was excited about being involved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and getting to see Spider-Man interacting with the other people in that universe. But he also wanted to explore a different side of this world:

"I was really excited about that, because the other movies have shown what I described as the Penthouse level of the Marvel world, what it's like to be Thor, Iron Man, you know, a billionaire playboy and all of that stuff. But what's great about Spider-Man is that he's a regular kid and so by showing his story you also get to show what the ground level is like in a world where the Avengers exist, which is already, I think, a great premise for a movie. So that was very exciting, but also just Tom. By having Peter Parker be a kid that also opens up, I think, a lot of possibilities that are only really explored at the beginning of the other two versions of the films. In the Raimi one he's only in high school for like ten minutes, but I wanted to make a high school movie already so the opportunity to do it with Spider-Man was pretty exciting."

Watts is friends with The Amazing Spider-Man series director Marc Webb from his days directing music video days. He met with Webb who he claims gave him "the best advice":

He was like 'Just make sure to get lunch with Stan Lee. Definitely enjoy yourself.

Tom Holland was cast as Peter Parker for Civil War before Jon Watts was on board to direct Spider-Man: Homecoming.

On the casting of Tom Holland as Peter Parker, producer Amy Pascal said "From the very beginning, the idea was to cast somebody who was a kid who had that kid sensibility who you felt had the weight of the world on him and only a kid could feel like a kid. You know? No matter what. And that's what we wanted. We wanted to get that feeling this time."

Tom Holland was in the middle of filming other movies when he auditioned. At first, his agents told him they didn't know what movie or role he was trying out for. He recorded two self-takes with co-stars Joel Kinnaman and Jon Beranthal, and then did another self-take on his own: "It was funny because my agents at one point were like, we don't know who you're auditioning for. I was like, 'But my lines are for Spider-Man – so who else could I possibly be auditioning for?' They were like 'We don't know.' So I sort of clocked on then that it was for Spider-Man, but they were so sort of made-up scenes. Nothing from the movie."

He was asked to come to Atlanta to screen test with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans: "That for me was a good enough of an experience as itself – I didn't need to get the movie. I was so happy to have just got that far and to have worked with Robert and Chris; I was happy to just sort of go home. But when this job came in, I've never been happier. It was the craziest day of my life; it was insane. And we were waiting around for what felt like months before I found out."

To prepare for the role, Marvel sent Tom Holland to a school in the Bronx for three days under a fake name with a fake accent. It turned out to be a vital experience:

"Marvel actually sent me to a school in the Bronx where I had a fake name, and I put on an accent, and I went for like three days. I basically had to go to this science school and blend in with all the kids, and some of the teachers didn't even know. It was a science school, and I am in no way a science student. Some of the teachers would call me up in front of the class and try to get me to do science equations and stuff – it was so embarrassing. But it was actually really informative because schools in London are so different. I would go to school every day in a suit and tie, with just boys. To be in a school where you can be free and let loose, and be with girls, it was so different. Like SO different. But yeah, it was a really great experience. Nobody knew. I actually have videos on my phone of me interviewing people, and asking them what they thought of the new Spider-Man in Civil War. They were like, Oh he's great, I love him, and then some people were like, Nah, I don't love him, he's not great – and I was standing right in front of them! It was really fun."

In addition to high school training, Holland also prepared for a month before filming to pull off his stunts.

Director Jon Watts gave the young cast a list of movies to watch, which he called a "coming of age film festival." They got together at Holland's house one day and had a marathon viewing party and ordered Dominos Pizza. The list of movies included The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Freaks and Geeks and more.

There is a Ferris Bueller-inspired chase scene with Peter Parker trying to catch the Vulture's goons through a suburban neighborhood, going through backyards and encountering obstacles such as dogs.

Peter Parker has the Imperial March score from Star Wars as his phone ringtone, a reference to his appearance in Civil War (where a key plot point involved a reference to The Empire Strikes Back).

The Staten Island Ferry set features a couple of cool Easter eggs, including advertisement posters for the Battle of New York Memorial Museum and Stark Expo 2018 in Flushing Meadows (scheduled Oct 17-27, 2017).

In the High School, Howard Stark is featured in a mural alongside Galileo and Einstein.

The sets for the Department of Damage Control will be filled with MCU Easter eggs.

Daredevil, Luke Cage and the other NYC Marvel Netflix characters are not referenced.

Sony has not told Marvel that anything is off the table. They have creatively not put any limitations on the movie. Marvel comes up with their ideas and pitches them to Sony for approval.

On the set of Toomes' warehouse headquarters, we saw a crayon drawing on Toomes refrigerator by his kid of Iron Man and The Hulk fighting a Chitauri during the Battle of New York.

The secret working title for the production was  "The Summer Of George," a reference to an episode of Seinfeld where Jason Alexander's George Costanza declares it will be the Summer of George. Co-producer Eric Hauserman Carroll told us that they "pick code names that make us giggle" and that the title came about because they were watching Seinfeld reruns as they were planning the film's production: "And when we had to pick a code name for this, Summer of George was one [suggestion] that made us all laugh the hardest. Our email addresses are Episode 1456.com." He even admits that for a while they were trying to get Jason Alexander for a cameo, but it didn't happen.

The Washington Monument action sequence involves Parker's high school track team becoming trapped in the monument with a potentially unstable object that Parker gave to Ned for safekeeping. The elevator is broken, forcing Peter to scale the monument to help save them.

Another tentpole action sequence takes place on the Staten Island Ferry. Parker learns something is going down on the boat and decides to take care of it himself with his enhanced tech suit. As you can see in the trailer, things don't go as planned and the ship is torn in half, forcing Iron Man to step in and help. The three-story Staten Island Ferry was recreated on the backlot on a hydraulics system that allowed the ship to split in half. Water tanks in the back dumped many gallons of water on the set. They got the plans from the real ferry and recreated it from those specs.

(Possible light spoilers follow.)

Near the end of the film, Peter is forced to leave the Homecoming dance to have a confrontation with Shocker and his crew at the bus yard outside of school, as seen in the trailers. Another major action sequence revolves around Spider-Man's attempt to stop Vulture's Damage Control plane heist.

Amy Pascal spoke about the future of Spider-Man in the MCU:

"I think we found the right formula and I think everybody is going to want the right thing to continue. And I think that there's a, as I said, there's a surprisingly generous and cooperative thing, and if it works for everybody, then it's going to work for everybody. The thing is, and I always felt this way, if you worry about the movie and you worry about the story, all the politics take care of themselves. They just do. Because when the movies work, there's enough for more than everybody. It's when you start making the other stuff first that you start to get in trouble. [...] Nothing precludes anything. The sky is open right now. And I think that you know, if we can keep this goodwill going, I think it's going to be good for the fans and good for the journalists and the nerds and good for the companies."

Amy also explained why Marvel Studios is not involved in the animated Spider-Man movie: "They just weren't part of it. It was something we were doing with Chris and Phil Miller, and it's a very different kind of take on it? It's another realm. "

Tom Holland says that he would love to kick the crap out of Venom one day. It's a shame that film won't take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right now, the plan is to have the inevitable sequel take place in his junior year and a third movie of the trilogy to take place during his senior year of school.

We visited the Spider-man: Homecoming set as they were filming at Pinewood Atlanta Studios, the same location where they filmed Captain America: Civil War and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. To give you some perspective, we visited on August 22, 2016, just a couple weeks after Suicide Squad opened in theaters. It was day 46 of a planned 74 days of production. In addition to Atlanta, they shot ten days in New York City and a few days overseas with a splinter unit for the Berlin montage.

The day we were in town, they were filming outside of the Studios at a warehouse in an area called Atlanta's West End. The West End is a series of abandoned warehouses that are used almost exclusively for filming these days.

We were on set while they were shooting scene 137.  The Vulture is sitting on a work desk, talking to someone off camera. Keaton reacts to a bunch of things that will be added later with CG. He says something and then gets a blast of air blown on him and picks up a walkie-talkie and calls for help. Tom shows up wearing the old Spider-Man suit. We were not allowed to hear the dialogue from video village, apparently due to spoiler content, so we really don't know what happened during the scene, but we were told it's the first time Parker and Toomes meet in person.

And one finale note: the candy dish at craft services is filled with fake plastic spiders.