The Big J. Jonah Jameson Plot Hole In Spider-Man: No Way Home No One Talks About
Contains spoilers for "Spider-Man: No Way Home"
Comic book fans are notorious for finding continuity errors and plot holes in the stories they consume. Unfortunately, those kinds of things tend to happen a lot when a story has to deal with decades of contradictory and convoluted comic book lore, all of which, apparently, exists in the same timeline.
Now, superhero movies are starting to incorporate complicated, comic book-style multiversal arcs into their own stories, which opens the door for plenty of plot holes to start popping up on the big screen. The latest example of this is in "Spider-Man: No Way Home," which follows characters from multiple realities — in other words, different "Spider-Man" franchises — as they all converge on Tom Holland's Peter Parker.
From a storytelling standpoint, the multiversal plot of "No Way Home" allows for characters from different "Spider-Man" films to meet each other and interact on-screen. But while the film does a pretty good job of keeping its story as simple as possible, it does contain one plot hole involving J. Jonah Jameson, which never gets resolved.
Why is J. Jonah Jameson always played by J.K. Simmons?
"Spider-Man: No Way Home" sees fan-favorite characters like Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin and Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus meeting Tom Holland's Peter Parker, but it has to introduce some multiverse-shattering magical spells courtesy of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) before any of those crossovers become possible. That said, J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson has been alive and screaming in the MCU ever since his mid-credits cameo in "Spider-Man: Far From Home," and as far as we know, he didn't come from any other universe.
Considering the fact that Simmons played Jameson in the same Sam Raimi-directed "Spider-Man" movies that starred Molina and Dafoe, his reprisal of the role at the end of "Far From Home" understandably led many fans to think he'd crossed over into the MCU through some multiversal means. After "No Way Home," however, that appears to not actually be the case.
Now, Simmons has, notably, played J. Jonah Jameson outside of the MCU and Raimi "Spider-Man" films, having voiced the role in multiple Marvel-branded animated series (via IMDb). Taking that into account, the explanation for his ongoing relationship with the character is probably as simple as Marvel and Sony agreeing that it's just too hard to picture anyone else in the role of J. Jonah Jameson. To put it another way: Simmons simply embodies the character too well to be replaced.
Of course, his presence in the MCU does invite certain questions from viewers. For instance, if characters like Peter Parker, Aunt May, and Mary Jane Watson can all look completely different depending on which universe they come from, why is J. Jonah Jameson played by the same actor in seemingly every reality?
Perhaps it's just the fact that, even in a multiverse, there's really only one J. Jonah Jameson, and he's played by J.K. Simmons.