Jon Watts kept bothering bosses on ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ until they agreed to hire him to make the movie.
The 36-year-old filmmaker has helmed the webslinger’s first ever full adventure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following the unique deal which was struck between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures who own the rights to the character who first came to life in the pages of Marvel Comics.
Watts has been praised by the cast, including Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. who admitted what intrigued him most about the Spidey standalone was working with the ‘Cop Car’ filmmaker, but he was not confident about getting the job but he was very persistent in trying to convince the production team.
Speaking to Den of Geek, Watts said: "I didn’t think I was gonna get the job at all. Like I had a really great meeting with them – an initial meeting after they had seen ‘Cop Car’ – and I really didn’t ever think I was going to get it.
"I had been wanting to make a coming of age movie, though, so when it was sort of floated that they were going to make Spider-Man younger than we’ve ever really seen him before, that was really exciting.
"I had already been trying to make that sort of a movie, so I took all of those ideas I had been working on and kind of projected them onto this film. Then I just, kind of, bothered them, and everyone at Sony. I made like a mood reel just editing together a bunch of clips into almost like a fake trailer.
Watts continued to storyboard his ideas to the producers and it was only when he felt totally comfortable that he had successfully conveyed his ideas for Spider-Man that he started to believe he could land the much sought-after gig.
He added: "To show people the tone I was imagining. And I storyboarded a bunch of sequences that I sent to them and just … I thought it was going to be really good practice for pitching to big studios. I really didn’t think I was gonna get it, until the very, very end."
‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ follows Peter Parker and his wallcrawling alter ego (Tom Holland) after the events of ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and sees the young superhero trying to impress his mentor Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) in order to become an Avenger.
Jon Watts campaigned for Spider-Man: Homecoming job
