PETER PARKER’S EUROPEAN VACATION
The Wizard Of Oz has taught us much. Wicked witches are vulnerable to water and falling houses, for one thing. There’s no place like home, for another. And that you should always be wary of pulling back the curtain, because you may not like what you see.
That said, let’s tug on the tassels just a little bit. As well as getting the first look at an exciting project, or sitting down with a talented actor or director, part of the joy of visiting movie sets is to see the world, to travel to new countries, to experience new cultures. So, when news broke that the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, the successful Spider-reboot that integrated Peter Parker into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was going to be called Spider-Man: Far From Home, and would take the webslinger to brand-new territories, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for Empire to dust off the old passport, log on to Duolingo and brush up on, say, the Spanish for, “What attracted you to the project?” (In case you were wondering, it’s, “¿Qué te atrajo del proyecto?”)
None of which explains quite how Empire has managed to find itself in a dark, rain-spattered tent at Leavesden Studios, little more than a stone’s throw from Watford, watching the trailer for Richard Grieco crapfest Teen Agent with Far From Home’s director, Jon Watts. “He’s, like, 35 here, playing a scene here in high school,” laughs Watts, as Grieco (and his amazingly coiffured mullet) swans around Europe as a ‘teenage’ superspy. “I don’t know why we’re not recreating this and using it for all our marketing.”
And there, right there, is the reason why we’re watching the trailer. (Or, as it was called in Australia, .) Because , even more so than , is taking Spider-Man far away from his comfort zone. “The idea is always to try and show Spider-Man in situations that we’ve never seen him in before,” explains Watts. And part of that involves dropping the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man into neighbourhoods that are distinctly unfriendly.
