The Spider-Man MCU trilogy director reveals why they never showed the spider bite origin

If there’s a common thing between all of Spider-Man’s origin stories, it’s the fateful spider bite that gave Peter Parker his arachnid powers during a science excursion in school. This event was filmed and shown in both of the previous cinematic series of the hero, yet it was skipped over for the MCU when it was played by Tom Holland. John Watts, the director, has explained why they decided to go in that direction and not show anything regarding the origins of the current iteration of the hero.

The truth behind the MCU spider bite

As fans may remember, the first time we saw Spider-Man in the MCU was in Captain America: Civil War, in which a very young Peter Parker was recruited by Iron Man when he was already being a hero, so there was no need to show off where he had gotten his abilities. Soon after his first solo outing, Spider-Man: Homecoming, was released, but there was also no mention of his origins. No flashbacks, not even a callback. Why was that?

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“It was just so nice to skip past it and just deal with more with the repercussions… and just explore it from the perspective of someone else finding out about it and having a lot of questions.” said Jon Watts. Later on in an interview with Sean O’Connell, Christopher Markus expanded on the comments a bit further: “I mean, God knows there would have to be something not unlike that, probably… But no, I wouldn't say… I mean, I think he was bitten by a radioactive spider on a field trip.". Further revealing, “We never talked about that either, but I think that's what happened."

If you remember, the previous Spider-Man movies already showed the origin of his powers, with Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker being bitten by a spider during an excursion to the University of Columbia, while Andrew Garfield’s was bit by one in an Oscorp complex, when he sneaks out of the guided tour to chat with Doctor Curtis Connors, who would later become the Lizard.

Considering all of this, it’s not so strange then that the directors, writers and producers of the character’s movies feel like this is now common knowledge, a part of pop culture itself both in the movies and the comics, so it’s not really necessary to show. In this way they had much more freedom in the Homecoming trilogy, and didn’t repeat the scene on the big screen for a third time.

Source | Screen Rant