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Homecoming
Mar. 23rd, 2026 06:47 amNine years later, Spider-Man: Homecoming holds up really well. Yeah, that's right, it was made in 2017, it's been almost a decade of Tom Holland's Spider-Man. I was watching Homecoming last night and feeling really surprised at how much better it's written than the follow up films. I vividly remember how badly written Far from Home was. I guess the late 2010s marks the shift in Disney's policy, away from hiring quality writers in favour of cheaper, more easily dominated young writers.
Homecoming's screenplay is credited to three separate writing duos--(1)Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, (2) Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, and (3) Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Watts is the director and he and Ford later wrote Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. McKenna and Sommers are the sole credited writers of Far from Home, No Way Home, and Brand New Day. Goldstein and Daley are the writers and directors of Game Night and Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, movies that have thrived on streaming, the true test of a film's writing quality. When a film attracts regular viewing even though it's either not connected to a popular franchise or it's connected to a franchise audiences had low expectations for (Dungeons and Dragons), it's a pretty reliable metric of quality. That's why Homecoming is so good, that's why Disney won't work with Goldstein and Daley anymore. Yes, I think Disney's current regime actively discourages quality as cost-prohibitive.
Also I wonder if Disney's current administration actively discourages tension in their movies, for fear of movies being too traumatising for young viewers. The set pieces in Homecoming are wonderful back-and-forths between tension and comedy. When Spider-Man has to save his friends from the Washington Monument, the filmmakers squeeze every ounce of tension they can from the scenario. They even use comedy to feed it as when the elevator operator's banal reassurances of safety are directly contradicted by the computer in Spider-Man's suit. They throw in the tension around Spider-Man being actually stunned by how high and isolated the monument is, underlying that if he were to fall, his spider tricks couldn't save him. There's a basic sense of the physical reality at play that's missing from so many newer screenplays.
Anyway, I'm still looking forward to Brand New Day but I wish Disney would prioritise writing. People seem to be complaining about the special effects but the effects wouldn't matter so much if the screenplays were better. Also, I think the trailer is showing alternate versions of shots from the final film in which certain spoiler related elements have been removed. A lot of people seem to think Peter is becoming a mutant in the trailer but I maintain my interpretation that he's in fact acquired the Venom symbiote.
Homecoming's screenplay is credited to three separate writing duos--(1)Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, (2) Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, and (3) Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Watts is the director and he and Ford later wrote Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. McKenna and Sommers are the sole credited writers of Far from Home, No Way Home, and Brand New Day. Goldstein and Daley are the writers and directors of Game Night and Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, movies that have thrived on streaming, the true test of a film's writing quality. When a film attracts regular viewing even though it's either not connected to a popular franchise or it's connected to a franchise audiences had low expectations for (Dungeons and Dragons), it's a pretty reliable metric of quality. That's why Homecoming is so good, that's why Disney won't work with Goldstein and Daley anymore. Yes, I think Disney's current regime actively discourages quality as cost-prohibitive.
Also I wonder if Disney's current administration actively discourages tension in their movies, for fear of movies being too traumatising for young viewers. The set pieces in Homecoming are wonderful back-and-forths between tension and comedy. When Spider-Man has to save his friends from the Washington Monument, the filmmakers squeeze every ounce of tension they can from the scenario. They even use comedy to feed it as when the elevator operator's banal reassurances of safety are directly contradicted by the computer in Spider-Man's suit. They throw in the tension around Spider-Man being actually stunned by how high and isolated the monument is, underlying that if he were to fall, his spider tricks couldn't save him. There's a basic sense of the physical reality at play that's missing from so many newer screenplays.
Anyway, I'm still looking forward to Brand New Day but I wish Disney would prioritise writing. People seem to be complaining about the special effects but the effects wouldn't matter so much if the screenplays were better. Also, I think the trailer is showing alternate versions of shots from the final film in which certain spoiler related elements have been removed. A lot of people seem to think Peter is becoming a mutant in the trailer but I maintain my interpretation that he's in fact acquired the Venom symbiote.
