Spider-Man: Far From Home director explains how that major cameo came to be

Spider-Man: Far From Home’s Jon Watts discusses how Marvel Studios landed that massive cameo. Major spoilers lie ahead.

Spider-Man: Far From Home managed to drop a number of surprises for audiences. One of those surprises came during the mid-credits scene, which featured the Marvel Cinematic Universe debut of J. Jonah Jameson, with J.K. Simmons returning in the role. The moment was a shocker, to say the least, but how did director Jon Watts and Marvel Studios get Simmons to reprise his role from Sam Raimi’s trilogy?

Watts recently appeared on an episode of CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast, and he shed some light on how things came together. According to Watts, revealing Spider-Man’s identity to the world was always the plan. But they soon reasoned that it had to be revealed through the news media, which led to the inclusion of the Daily Bugle. This led the studio to call Simmons, who was their first and only choice for Jameson:

"“We knew we were going to reveal Spider-Man’s identity at the end of the movie, and it had to be through the media somehow. And then you start talking about, what is the main media in Spider-Man comics, and it has always been The Daily Bugle. And then so you start talking about what The Daily Bugle might be now. And then we started talking about J. Jonah Jameson, and it’s like… it’s gotta be him. Like, there was never any discussion about it being someone else. Like, it’s gotta be JK Simmons. The question was just, would he do it?”"

This meeting ultimately went well and, after Simmons agreed to return, it had to be kept under wraps. Watts even revealed that this intense secrecy led to the cameo being filmed in a conference room at Marvel Studios:

More from Marvel Cinematic Universe

• Loki season 2 finale does set the stage for Kang Dynasty
• Marvel: (Spoiler) exits Avengers: The Kang Dynasty
• Will Loki air a new bonus episode tonight? (November 16, 2023)
• What If…? season 2 gets premiere date (and there’s a major twist)
• Marvel rumors hint Pedro Pascal has been cast in key Fantastic Four role

"“It was an amazing meeting. We saved that until the very, very, very end because we wanted to keep it a secret and we didn’t want it somehow [get out]. We shot it in like a conference room at Marvel with like a green screen set up. It was funny because it was the exact same setup that we shot, essentially, the kid’s news from the beginning [of the movie]. … It was just him and a desk and a green screen.”"

The director also recalls Simmons intially feeling somewhat weird about returning to the role, but he was quickly able to jump back into it:

"“He just launched into it, and it was amazing, because I was just watching the movie. I asked him, I said, ‘Is this weird?’ And he’s like, ‘It’s a little weird.’ But he just stepped right back into the role. And it was, it was, I had goosebumps.”"

Seeing J.K. Simmons reprise his fan favorite role as Spider-Man’s number one critic was a major surprise for fans. While many campaigned for him to be brought back if Jameson was ever introduced in the MCU, most assumed the role would be recast. But it seems Jon Watts and Marvel Studios felt the same way.

And not only was the mid-credits scene effectively executed, but the updates made to the Daily Bugle as a news outlet and J. Jonah Jameson’s depiction were well done. With “JJ” and the Bugle now a force in the MCU, it will be interesting to see what kind of impact they have on the web-slinger and the superhero community at large.