Last August, a group of fellow journalists and I went to London to visit the set of Spider-Man: Far From Home. In the upcoming sequel, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and his friends are going on a European vacation. In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter couldn’t wait to do more Spider-Man stuff, but this time around, he’s looking forward to a break from his responsibilities. Unfortunately, those responsibilities follow him across the Atlantic where he’s recruited by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to stop “elementals” that are popping up across the globe.

When we arrived on set, we spoke with executive producer Eric Carroll who gave us a quick rundown of the movie. We were shown a sizzle reel and then Carroll explained how Peter and his friends are on a school field trip to Europe. But as you’ve seen in the trailer, that gets interrupted by Nick Fury.

Plot Details

• The trip begins with Peter thinking it’s going to be a two-week vacation and Peter and Ned (Jacob Batalon) think they’re going to be two single guys living it up in Europe. Cut forward to the actual trip and Ned has a girlfriend, Betty Brandt (Angourie Rice).
• Peter has a crush on MJ (Zendaya), but she’s with a new character, Brad, who’s a “cool” guy.
• Martin Starr will return as Mr. Harrington who is chaperoning the trip alongside B. Smoove, who plays Mr. Bell. The idea to cast Smoove came from the Audi commercials he did for Spider-Man: Homecoming with Tom Holland.
• They’re staying in crummy hostels, but the kids aren’t old and jaded so they think it’s cool.
• Now that Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) knows Peter is Spider-Man, she’s a bit of an activist and wants Peter to be Spider-Man 24/7 so he can help with charitable causes.
• They wanted to pair Peter Parker against Nick Fury because if Peter Parker is the uncoolest kid, they thought it would be a good idea to put him next to the coolest spy.
• Peter is worried people will connect the dots if Spider-Man shows up again during a class field trip, so he gets the stealth suit, which is inspired by Spider-Man: Noir and Spider-Man: Big Time. It’s a tactical suit with goggles to help Peter’s focus, and the goggles flip up because it looks a lot less cool.
• The Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) costume is faithful to the comics and done practically (more on that in a bit).
• Mysterio is supposed to be on a team of heroes.
• The villains are elementals. So, for example, the water elemental is inspired by Hydro Man from the comics, but it is not Hydro Man. The same goes for Molten Man.
• The elementals are appearing around the globe and that’s what Nick Fury is trying to stop.
• These are villains that can’t be webbed or punched, so it’s a test of Peter’s intelligence.
• As you’ve seen in the trailer, Mysterio comes in the picture to fight the Water Elemental. Spider-Man does crowd control while Mysterio fights the elemental.
• While there will be some shooting on location in Venice, they’ve also built a massive Venice backlot (more on that later in the article).
• The structure of the movie is a bit of a road trip. The film begins in Mexico in the aftermath of an elemental’s attack. Then we go to New York City to meet up with Peter. Then the action moves to Venice where Peter is recruited by Nick Fury. Then they move to the Alps in Switzerland where Peter tries to make Brad look bad but it blows up in his face. Then the action moves to Prague where they fight Molten Man and then on to Berlin and then a small Dutch village. The climax of the movie will be in London.
• They had to invent the bad hostel in Venice because they couldn’t find one as awful as they needed it to be.
• They have a shot in the small Dutch village they really like of Spider-Man running through the tulips.
• They wanted to take the spirit of Spider-Man: Homecoming and put it on a trip.
• Carroll compared Mysterio to Baron Mordo in that he’s a friend and mentor figure to Peter.
• There will be no confusion as to where this movie falls in the MCU timeline.
• Spider-Man will wear the stealth suit for a large chunk of the movie.
• Peter Parker will be getting wrapped up in a spy story.
• Contrary to early reports, Michael Keaton is not returning as Vulture. Scorpion is not returning in this. There will be no Miles Morales.
• Peter is aware of Nick Fury before they meet.
• There are some ideas about the Daily Bugle and J. Jonah Jameson, but nothing they were willing to share.
• Mysterio has a mystical slant, and his powers are tied to the elementals.
• In this movie, Peter is a bit more confident, but villains keep interrupting his summer vacation.
• Ned will be the “Man in the Chair” again.
• Nick Fury is still operating in the shadows.

Costume Department

• We’re shown the classic Spidey suit as well as the costume for Mysterio.
• The Mysterio costume we’re being shown is a lighting reference for the real costume.
• The costume really does light up.
• They have a fishbowl helmet as a lighting reference, but the actual helmet in the movie will be handled by the VFX team.
• There’s an amazing level of detail right down the embroidery on Mysterio’s cape.
• The costume draws inspiration from other MCU movies, and the rune elements are a combination of the ancient and modern.
• The costume has hundreds of parts to make it work.
• There are 400 LEDs and a mass of wires inside.
• The main part of the costume is urethane.
• There’s lighting in the cape as well., and the LEDs can change color, so you need two people just working the electronics.
• There are only 5 versions of the Mysterio costume: A stick version for reference, two normal ones, one stunt one, and a one beauty costume.
• For the Spider-Man suit, they had 20 to 30 on Homecoming and so they built some new ones for this movie.
• The company that had made this special spandex had run out so they had to wait eight weeks. The spandex is then dyed and printed.
• The Stealth Suit is also custom made, but it’s more of a conventional garment.
• They compare the Stealth Suit to Hawkeye’s outfit with custom-made buckles and everything kept compact.
• Moving in the Stealth Suit is like moving in a dance outfit.
• And then the finishing touch is the low-tech goggles.

The Venice Backlot

The Venice Backlot is ridiculously well done. There are shops and restaurants and blue-green water. There are even gondolas. Blue screens are up for compositing the sky. I’ve never been to Venice so I can’t tell you if it’s an accurate recreation, but it at least feels convincing and fully formed. It all feels completely real until you touch a bannister and feel plaster instead of stone.

Right now they’re doing second unit filming for a stunt scene. The first pass with have Holland with no cast and no bridge. The second pass with have no Holland and they’ll blow the bridge. The third pass with have Holland and a blown bridge. There’s some rehearsal in the scene. In the story, Peter has just bought a piece of jewelry for MJ and in the filming they’re going through the motions so they can add VFX so he’s miming like he’s doused and hiding.

Next up they’ve got no cast on set and they’re going to blow the bridge and some of the water (the elemental destroying this stuff will obviously be added later). However, they can’t blow the bridge until the clouds get out of the way. With the clouds blocking the sun, the lighting won’t be right, so you’ve got this entire crew just waiting for clouds to move. The magic of movies!

They only get one shot with the bridge, but they make it count. It’s always cool when you get to visit set on a day with some practical destruction and they blow the bridge apart and into the water. We want to cheer, but we wait until they’ve said “cut” to admire how cool that was.

Closing Thoughts

While everyone was very tightlipped about the film in relation to Avengers: Endgame (remember, this is August 2018 where Endgame is still called Avengers 4), on its own merits, Far From Home looks like the perfect palette cleanser to the epic Endgame. They’ve lost none of the vibe from Homecoming and yet they’ve also expanded the canvas. It looks like the sequel should be a lot of fun and I’m eager to see where they take it.

Spider-Man: Far From Home opens July 2nd.