Why ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Had Three Pairs Of Writers

Spider-Man: Homecoming had a lot of writers working on it, which initially raised some concerns. Jon Watts explains why so much work went into the script.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

Usually, movies that have too many writers end up proving that too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth, but judging by the pre-release acclaim that Spider-Man: Homecoming has received, the movie’s six writers turned in a pretty great superhero adventure. Director Jon Watts explained what each writing team on Spider-Man: Homecoming contributed to the movie.

The three teams that worked on the script to Spider-Man: Homecoming are Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (who turned in the first draft), Jon Watts and Christopher Ford (who revised the draft into a shooting script), and Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (who tweaked the script whenever they needed to do so on-set). (A lot of “Johns” and “Chrises” between the six of them.) Den of Geek asked Watts why so many writers were needed, and he outlined what these teams accomplished together:

“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. 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.”

Goldstein and Daley co-wrote Horrible Bosses, its sequel, and Vacation. Watts and Ford previously collaborated on the screenplays to Clown and Cop Car and are good friends outside of work. McKenna and Sommers both contributed to this year’s The LEGO Batman Movie, as well as the upcoming Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. In general, it seems as though the reason the revised screenplay ultimately turned out so well is because of the collaboration between these writing teams and not in spite of it.

Spider-Man: Homecoming swings into theaters on July 7, 2017. The film features a cast that includes Tom Holland as Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Robert Downey Junior as Tony Stark (Iron Man), Zendaya Coleman as Michelle, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds, Tony Revolori as “Flash” Thompson, Laura Harrier as Liz Allan, Marisa Tomei as May Parker, Jon Favreau as Harold “Happy” Hogan, Michael Keaton as Adrian Toomes (Vulture), Bokeem Woodbine as Herman Schultz (Shocker), and Michael Chernus as Phineas Mason (Tinkerer).

Source: Den of Geek