“How the MCU Was Made”is a series of deep-dive articles that delve into the ins and outs of the development history, production, and release of all the Marvel Studios movies.

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe was more than off and running in the mid 2010s, having successfully launched individual superhero franchises, sequels, and unprecedented Avengers movies, there was still at least one major property Marvel didn’t have in their toybox: Spider-Man. And they wanted him. Badly. For years, fans had clamored to see what Marvel Studios could do with the famous webslinger in their fold, but the rights to the character were under license with Sony Pictures. The rival studio helped jump-start this era of superhero movies in the first place with Sam Raimi’s 2002 film Spider-Man, and they weren’t about to let go of their crown jewel—despite dwindling box office returns.

Then the unprecedented happened. Instead of giving Spider-Man back, Sony agreed to a groundbreaking arrangement with Marvel Studios, one that benefitted both studios in very different ways. This is the story of how Spider-Man: Homecoming was born.

While fans had been itching to see Marvel tackle Spider-Man ever since The Avengers launched in 2012, the general thinking on the matter was it would never happen. The Spider-Man comics and character were the only superhero property that Sony had, and there was no way the studio would give that up in the midst of a superhero movie craze. Most assumed Sony would just simply keep rebooting, retooling, and relaunching Spider-Man movies forever.

RELATED: How the MCU Was Made: 'Captain America: Civil War' and Casting a New Spider-Man

But unbeknownst to the public, Marvel Studios—and in particular Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige—were keen on getting Spider-Man back themselves, and had begun making quiet overtures to Sony in 2014 following the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Sony’s Andrew Garfield-fronted sequel performed fine at the box office, but received scathing reviews and a ho-hum response from fans, even though it was meant to serve as the launching pad for a series of interconnected Spider-Man Universe films. Smelling blood in the water, Feige and Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter made their move.

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The ask was this: let Marvel Studios help reboot Spider-Man and use the character in their upcoming MCU film Captain America: Civil War. Then-Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal was understandably hesitant despite numerous sitdowns with Feige, and complicating matters was the fact that Perlmutter thought any deal between Marvel and Sony should benefit Marvel, to the tune of Marvel getting a 50% stake in the next Spider-Man film while Sony would only get a 5% stake inCaptain America: Civil War(per reporting in theBen FritzbookThe Big Picture). As you can imagine, Sony balked.

By Fall 2014 a deal between the two companies had yet to be struck, and Marvel was under the gun because production on Civil War was gearing up. Internally, Sony was considering rebooting Spider-Man themselves in a Sinister Six movie written and directed by Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods). But just when Goddard delivered his first draft, Sony was hacked, releasing a copious amount of private emails into the world. Now the public had become aware that Sony and Marvel had discussed bringing Spider-Man into the MCU, and with the studio’s back against the wall, Sony reapproached Marvel about that whole co-producing idea.

On February 9, 2015 a groundbreaking deal was announced. A new Spider-Man would debut in 2016’sCaptain America: Civil War, released by Disney, and that same Spider-Man would star in a new standalone movie released by Sony in 2017, produced by Marvel Studios. The financial agreement reached was far less complicated than Marvel’s initial offer: each studio would fully invest in and keep most of the profits from its respective features. Andthe annual fee that Marvel pays Sony to keep the toy and merchandising profits to the Spider-Man character at Marvel would be reduced from $35 million if the new Marvel-producedSpider-Manmovie grossed over $750 million (it did).

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Image via Sony Pictures

Immediately, work got underway to cast this new Spider-Man so he could shoot his scenes for Captain America: Civil War. Per the Sony-Marvel deal, Sony retained final approval over casting, but would work in concert with Marvel to find the right actor. Both sides agreed they wanted to cast a much younger Peter Parker this time around (the MCU was already full of thirtysomething and fortysomething heroes), so they were looking for an actor of 15 or 16 years of age.

Casting shortlists surfaced in late April 2015, afterCivil Warfilming began on April 27, 2015. Marvel and Sony considered actors such asNat Wolff,Asa Butterfield,Timothee Chalamet,Liam James, and of courseTom Hollandfor the role of Peter Parker. By May, Marvel and Sony were testing actors opposite Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans, at which point Butterfield and Holland emerged as the frontrunners. On June 23rd, Holland was cast as the new Spider-Man, and literally days later he was on theCivil Warset shooting his scenes.

At the same time that casting for the new Spider-Man was underway, Sony and Marvel were looking to find a new creative team to spearhead the standalone Spider-Man film scheduled to arrive in theaters a year after Civil War. In May 2015, it was reported that the filmmakers in consideration to direct the new Spider-Man movie included Jonathan Levine (50/50), Ted Melfi (St. Vincent), Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect), John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein (Game Night), and Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite). Clearly they were looking for a filmmaker with a young sensibility, possibly skewing towards comedy, as Marvel ideally wanted to capture a John Hughes-esque tone with a story set in high school.

A month later, the directing sweepstakes continued with favorites narrowed down to Levine and Melfi, but this is also the first we heard of Jon Watts entering the fray. At the time he was a surprise inclusion, having recently helmed the Sundance indie Cop Car, but by June 23rd he had the job. Feige explained what made them choose Watts over the other candidates:

“We met with a lot of people and came down to a couple of very, very, very good finals candidates. Jon just—we really liked his movieCop Car, we met with him four, five, or six times, and each time he had more and more interesting things to say. And at Marvel, it always comes down to ultimately, “We can make a movie with this person for two years, we could spend almost every day with this person for two years. Let’s go.”

Watts followed Holland to the set of Civil War and not only shadowed the Russo Brothers to see how to make a Marvel movie, but also consulted on the depiction of Peter Parker.

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Image via Sony

In July, Daley and Goldstein—who were previously in the running to direct—were hired to write the screenplay for the new film. All involved agreed not to rehash the origin story and to instead hit the ground running with a coming-of-age tale set in the “life or death” stakes of high school.

The story continued to develop for what would eventually be titled Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Robert Downey Jr. was added to the ensemble in a mentor-like role to Peter Parker—although the actor was able to shoot all of his scenes in just three days.

As for choosing the villain of the film in the wake of the numerous Spider-Man movies that have already been made, Spider-Man: Homecoming producer Eric Caroll revealed that nearly every director who came in and pitched on the movie had Vulture as the Big Bad:

“We told all the writers and directors that came in, ‘Pitch us anything,’ because it’s one of these best idea-type scenarios—if someone came in with the greatest Doc Ock pitch of all time and we’re 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. So we were, again, leaning that way anyway but then we heard all these great ideas, and especially the one that Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley first pitched we were like, ‘Yeah this is cool. It feels MCU, it feels unique, it feels like you haven’t seen it before.’”

Michael Keaton was cast as the primary villain, and while the ensemble filled out with fresh young faces like Zendaya and Jacob Batalon, Watts gave the cast a bevy of teen-centric films to watch for homework: The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink among them. With regards to the diverse casting, it was important to Watts that the film reflect what a public high school in 2010s New York actually looks like:

“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 13 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 [a diverse student body] 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.

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Image via Sony Pictures

Filming on Spider-Man: Homecoming began in June 2016, around which time we also learned that the film had added Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers and Christopher Ford & Watts as credited screenwriters alongside Goldstein & Daley. Watts explained how the screenplay evolved:

"The first draft was really fun and funny, and sort of established the broad strokes of the movie. And then, what’s nice as the director is you can write exactly what you wanna shoot. So Ford and I did like a pretty substantial structural pass, rearranging things and building it into the sort of story arc we wanted it to be."

After Watts and Ford did their pass, McKenna and Sommers came onboard:

"And then the last two writers sort of came on as we went into production, to just handle things that would change during production. You know, it’s all a little bit flexible when you get to set. You try things out, and you just need someone to be writing while you’re shooting. And yeah, that was cool. Again, it was really nice having that kind of support, where I don’t have to go home after the shoot and type up a bunch of new pages for the next day. I could just go to sleep. [Laughs]”

Spider-Man: Homecoming hit theaters on July 7, 2017 to critical acclaim and $117 million in its opening weekend, which was the highest opening weekend for a Spider-Man movie since 2007’s Spider-Man 3. With an $880 million worldwide box office total, the film had outgrossed both Amazing Spider-Man movies, and the overall acclaim had earned the goodwill of the fans. Most importantly, the film introduced a new, fresh version of the Peter Parker character with whom fans instantly fell in love.

In hindsight, it’s still amazing to consider how Spider-Man: Homecoming actually happened. Two rival studios came together, without any significant exchange of money, to share a single character that benefitted both sides. And Marvel got the satisfaction of getting to personally oversee the creative decisions made in putting the movie together, and subsequently crossover Tom Holland’s adorable Peter Parker into other various MCU movies. That kind of speaks volumes to Feige and Co.’s passion for these characters.

Although with passion also comes the ability to admit when something’s wrong, and make the decision to significantly rework decisions made in the past. Next week, we dig into the making of Thor: Ragnarok.

If you missed my previous How the MCU Was Made articles, click the links below: