Spider-Man: Far From Home Cast Reveals Plot Details
Sony and Marvel have been tight-lipped about the plot of Spider-Man: Far From Home, but its stars — not so much.
During this month's Comic Con Brazil, two of the forthcoming flick's cast members blabbed a few significant details to assembled fans, the most interesting of which is that Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio will not be the film's villain, but will instead be teaming up with the wall-crawler to deal with a looming extradimensional threat, per Collider. Surprisingly, it wasn't star and famed spoilermeister Tom Holland doing the blabbing, but Gyllenhaal and Jacob Batalon, who portrays Peter Parker's best friend (and "guy in the chair") Ned.
What's the nature of the threat, you ask? Here's Batalon letting it slip: "It's basically just about the kids going on a European vacation. We go to London, we go to Prague, we go everywhere. It's just a really fun thing. There's a lot of dynamics that go on. A lot of relationship stuff. A lot of cool funny stuff. A lot of fun stunt stuff. The main focus is for him not to be Spider-Man per se, but he gets dragged into it. But you know he reluctantly saves the world again with Mysterio. Mysterio's a good guy in this, they're both teaming up to... defeat these Elemental monsters."
Back up, guy in the chair: Elemental monsters? Let's check our Marvel lore. The Elementals first appeared in the 1970's, in the title "Supernatural Thrillers" featuring the character of the Living Mummy, who is not exactly a household name. Coming to Earth thousands and thousands of years ago, they used their mastery of the four elements to attempt to establish a monolithic kingdom which would rule over the entire planet, before being banished back to their home universe by a young Egyptian warrior wielding the Ruby Scarab, a magical totem of untold power. They eventually returned to threaten the world in the present day, opposed by none other than Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers, who would go on to take up the mantle of Captain Marvel). The four Elementals are: Magnum (Earth), Hydron (Water), Zephyr (Air), and Hellfire (Fire, of course).
Apparently figuring that this cat was now out of the bag, Gyllenhaal saw fit to elaborate. "Well, there are these threats to the world, the Elemental creatures, and Mysterio is someone who knows about them and who wants to make sure that the world is safe from them," the actor said. "And Nick Fury asks him to come on and help, because he's the only one who really understands them in a way. And he teams up with... Spider-Man, and unfortunately, he has to make him become more than just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."
Previously, everybody (including us) had understandably assumed that Mysterio would be the film's villain. A longtime Spidey nemesis and frequent member of the revolving stable of villains known as the Sinister Six, the master of illusion (whose real name is Quentin Beck) first appeared all the way back in The Amazing Spider-Man #2, and throughout his long history in the comics has never been portrayed as anything but a stalwart antagonist of ol' Webhead. At one point, he even skipped over into the Ultimate universe to attempt to kill that timeline's version of Spidey; his schemes have been continually thwarted not only by Peter Parker, but by the likes of Ben Reilly (the Scarlet Spider), Iron Man, Deadpool, and Silver Sable.
Apparently, though, the motivations of his film incarnation will extend beyond simply "kill the spider." Perhaps, like his comics counterpart, he'll have knowledge of other dimensions and, therefore, insight as to how to defeat the Elementals. Or maybe, being all into magic and stuff, his contribution to the struggle will have something to do with the mysterious Ruby Scarab or an analog thereof. For now, this will remain open to speculation — because apparently Mr. Holland has finally learned his lesson. Upon being asked what he could add to Gyllenhaal's comment, the young star succinctly replied, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Please ask me another question!"
Of course, the raucous crowd had the benefit of just having viewed Far From Home's first trailer, which is expected to drop online literally any day now. Hopefully it'll fill in a few more blanks for us, but it seems that Spidey won't get much of a rest in between potentially world-ending threats. The upcoming Avengers: Endgame will draw to a conclusion the saga of Thanos and the Infinity Stones; Spider-Man: Far From Home will kick off Phase 4 of the MCU when it hits screens on July 5, 2019.