Spider-Man: Homecoming is finally out in theaters, and it’s pretty great. The movie’s final (pre-credits) scene left us wondering where the sequel will go, though, and director Jon Watts talked to Collider about what it could possibly mean.
And if you’re wondering if there are spoilers underneath this gallery of the Spider-Dude, you’d be right. It’s your fault if you keep scrolling.
What the–
The last scene of Spider-Man: Homecoming has Peter Parker returning home to find his classic costume returned from Tony Stark. He calls for his Aunt and, not getting a response, steps into his jumpsuit and is ready to venture out. The camera pans and Aunt May is standing behind him.
“What the f–” she shouts, only to be cut off by the credits.
The ending is meant to be a bit of a callback to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s history, and Watts isn’t sure yet how the characters are going to deal with the reveal.
“It was the same with the ending of [the first Iron Man] movie,” Watts said, “where they were like, are we really gonna do this? Like, are we just gonna have him tell everyone?”
Outing Stark at the end of the first Iron Man immediately set it apart from every other superhero film so far. His identity being exposed was no longer a point of drama, and the writers could do other, more interesting things with the character being freed of the burden.
With Aunt May knowing Peter’s secret, it seems like the writers are opening him to a similar growth, though his personality means it would likely go in a different direction from Stark’s. The writers haven’t quite figured out exactly what that means, just yet.
“It’s gonna be a complicated thing to deal with,” Watts said. “I have no idea how we’re gonna deal with it, but we’ll figure that out later.”
We’ve watched Spider-Man and Peter Parker keep the secret from Aunt May for decades now. His identity has been revealed in the comics, but with all the reboots and continuity resets, I’m honestly not sure if that’s canonical anymore. The movies are a different story though, with different takes on the character. Putting Peter in the costume in front of May has all kinds of potential. They could cop out and have him say it’s a costume or something, but that seems unlikely. Instead, we’ll watch Peter have to come to grips with responsibility in a way he hasn’t had to before while his aunt learns to accept him growing and becoming independent.
More than almost anything, that last scene has me excited to see where Spider-Man: Homecoming 2, whatever they end up calling it, goes.
The sequel is set to hit in the summer of 2019.