This is the first, and so far only MCU film to contain a cameo from a Community actor that wasn't directed by The Russo Brothers.
Trivia Tropes:
Acting in the Dark: Gwyneth Paltrow thought she was shooting a scene for an Avengers movie. She didn't realize it was for Spider-Man until years later.note She wasn't being intentionally kept in the dark. She just honestly thought she was shooting a scene for a different project.
Stan Lee also spoke positively about Tom Holland's performance as Peter Parker/Spider-Man on his Twitter account, saying that Holland came the closest to how Stan envisioned the character (particularly in his age and height).
Jacob Batalon and Laura Harrier get billed below Zendaya (and don't even get to appear on the poster) despite the fact that Ned and Liz have much larger roles than Michelle does as Peter's best friend/Secret-Keeper and love interest, respectively.
Gwyneth Paltrow gets fourth place billing in the end credits despite only appearing as Pepper Potts in a cameo less than a minute long.
Jennifer Connelly wasn't even in the animated CBB despite voicing the A.I installed in the Spider-Man suit.
California Doubling: Though the majority of the movie takes place in Queens, New York, much of the movie was shot in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional footage shot in Germany. A portion of the film was still shot in the real New York City, though.
The Cast Showoff: Tom Holland is a trained and experienced dancer and gymnast, which made it easier for him to perform a lot of his own stuntwork.
Corpsing: Captain America cracks a bit while making a PSA in The Stinger. After it's over, he asks, "How many more of these [do I have to make]?", indicating he thinks they are just as silly as the audience.
The Danza: Ghanaian teen actor Abraham Attah portrays a student named Abraham Brown; the character, a minor character and brother to the more well-known Hobie Brown, has existed since 1974, however, so the name wasn't created for Attah. In the Spanish dub, he's even voiced by Abraham Vega, taking it a step further.
Dawson Casting: Laura Harrier was 26 at the time of filming, playing the high-school student Liz Allan. It actually became a point of criticism as next to the much more convincing Tom Holland, the age difference really sticks out.
Dueling Works: Came out one month after Wonder Woman. Both Wonder Woman and Homecoming feature a top tier iconic hero of their respective comics publisher (DC and Marvel). Said hero is super strong, good-hearted and somewhat initially naive. Both were introduced on film as part of an ensemble cast in 2016 in their respective universe with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice for Wonder Woman and Captain America: Civil War for Spider-Man. Both films got equally raving reviews. Wonder Woman ended up the strongest at the domestic box office, grossing over $412 million while Homecoming ended up just over $330 million (which is nothing to scoff at nonetheless). Homecoming won internationally however, with over $880 million and counting vs Wonder Woman's $821.7 million (being released in 30 more countries than WW didn't hurt).
The two films also ended up airing their network premieres on TV exactly one week apart in the UK at Christmas 2020. Spider-Man Homecoming was on BBC One on 22nd December, and Wonder Woman was on ITV on 29th December.
Epileptic Trees: A decidedly gothic-looking girl with white hair who appears as a background character in various scenes is believed by several fans to be the MCU incarnation of Felicia Hardy.
Flip-Flop of God: Jon Watts claimed that the MCU Spider-Man won't have Spider-Sense due to not wanting to "lean" on it. This is in spite of the fact that this power was subtly utilized in Civil War. Kevin Feige then said that he did have it but intended for the film to make it "second nature" rather than an over-the-top reaction like the Raimi or Webb films. Spidey definitely has Spider-Sense in Avengers: Infinity War.
In this film, one may look at the moment where he reacts to Adrian sending his wing pack flying at him from behind without looking. Reacting with no surprise, he dodges at exactly the right moment, but nothing is made of how he knew. Bonus points for its similarity to a scene from the final confrontation with Norman Osborn in the 2002 film (where Peter's reaction - a similar backflip - being preceded by his Spider-Sense tingling was more explicitly shown.)
God Never Said That: One regarding a rumor behind Michael Barbieri's casting. Hot off of the controversy of the Race Lift of the Ancient One in Doctor Strange (2016), there were rumors that Barbieri's character would be a Caucasian version of Ganke Lee, the Korean-American best friend of Miles Morales, causing certain circles to decry Marvel as once again being discriminatory against Asian actors. Director Jon Watts was quick to debunk the rumor, however, stating that Barbieri's character would not be Ganke, nor a character based on Ganke. It was later revealed that Jacob Batalon's version of Ned Leeds will adopt Ganke's traits (which would avoid bringing up issues with race, since Batalon is Filipino), avoiding the issue altogether. In the end, Barbieri's character ended up being Charles Murphy, a very minor character from the original Amazing Spider-Man comics, who was white to begin with.
Amy Pascal, and the screenwriters admitted that they drew on Akira Kurosawa's High and Low for influences on how to re-imagine the Vulture, and Kevin Feige actually saw the film for the first time during their collaboration:
Kevin Feige: "I will tell you, I haven’t brought it up before, is we wanted a ground level villain. We wanted a villain to parallel Peter’s journey of what’s it like to be a normal person in this world. And an example that Amy [Pascal] used and it became a touch point ... was a film by Akira Kurosawa called High and Low, which I hadn’t seen before. And that we watched a number of times. And other than just exposing me to a great movie I’d never seen, which I appreciated ... it was a great touch point of inspiration from Amy about somebody who looks up at a wealthy person almost in a tower every day in their life and feels the need to respond to that in a villainous way.”
Feige cited the films of John Hughes as a major influence.
Method Acting: Tom Holland attended New York City's Bronx High School of Science for a few days to get a feel for what American high school is like. He declared that he'd initially suggested it as a joke, and was quite surprised when the execs took it seriously.
Milestone Celebration: This film was released in 2017, the 55th anniversary of the character. It's also the centennial of Jack Kirby, the co-creator of Iron Man, and who while having minimal involvement in Spider-Man (Ditko/Lee) did pencil the original famous cover of Amazing Fantasy #15. 2017 is also the 90th birthday of Spider-Man's co-creator Steve Ditko.
The signature shot in the trailer of Spider-Man and Iron Man swinging/flying toward the camera is not in the movie itself and was made exclusively for the trailers.
Peter doesn't kiss Liz at the homecoming dance.
The shot with The Vulture descending down the interior of the recognizable Atlanta Marriott Marquis isn't in the final film.
The Other Marty: The first Brazilian trailer had Hélio Ribeiro as the voice of the Vulture. However, Ribeiro had to make a trip before recording his lines, so the Vulture was voiced by Garcia Junior instead.
Michael Keaton playing a supervillain might come as a bit of a culture shock to fans of the 1989 Batman movie, where he played the title superhero. For others, it's right up his alley.
Zendaya herself describes Michelle as a dry, awkward bookworm. This is quite a far cry for her, since she's best known as an Idol Singer sitcom star.
Promoted Fanboy: Much like Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland has mentioned in interviews that he was a big Spider-Man fan to begin with, and getting the role was a dream come true for him. In a promotional video for Avengers: Infinity War, Holland added that he never imagined that he'd be a part of the setting, much less playing Spider-Man, after watching the first movie.
Reality Subtext: Tom Holland has become rather infamous for his inability to keep his mouth shut about Marvel secrets in interviews. The opening scene to Homecoming shows Peter Parker recording his entire trip to Berlin and fight with Captain America and his allies while Happy Hogan chastises him for failing to be discreet.
The Vulture was slated to be the Big Bad of both the third entry (before getting replaced by Venom) and the supposed fourth entry of the now Spider-Man Trilogy. Ironically, the iteration of Vulture from the third film was supposed to be played by Ben Kingsley a.k.a. the decoy/fake Mandarin from Iron Man 3.
Romance on the Set: After years of speculation and rumours, it was finally confirmed in 2021 that Tom Holland and Zendaya were dating. The shooting of this film is where they met. Although, they presumably did not start dating until the production of Spider-Man: No Way Home and according to reports, both were dating other people during the production of Homecoming and Far From Home. (Zendaya was dating her Euphoria costar Jacob Elordi in 2019).
Several pieces of merchandise depicted Shocker #2 in an MCU-style costume, complete with a mask and second gauntlet. He never wears anything remotely similar to that in the actual movie, so this was likely the merchandisers trying to make him look a little more "toyetic".
Due to production costs, most of the Vulture action figures have significantly undersized wings. One of the few figures to accurately depict his wingspan's scale is the Marvel Legends version, which had the wings as a Build-a-Figure.
While the Tinkerer had already been heavily rumored, the surprising announcement that the Shocker would be in the movie was accidentally made at a panel for Diamond Collectibles' toy line for the movie.
Photos of Spider-Man action figures in his homemade costume spoiled the fact that it was a lot more important than previously thought.
According to Tom Holland, the majority of scenes between Tony and Peter are improvised by Holland and Downey.
The poster of Spidey lying down in front of Avengers Tower uses a picture a photographer took of Tom Holland napping in-between takes, without Holland's knowledge.
Ned wearing the Spider-Man mask came from a point in production where Holland and Batalon weren't allowed to leave the bedroom set between filming and they started playing around with the props.
The post-credits Stinger is a cheesy infomercial from Captain America about the virtues of patience. It's a deliberate troll job on people who were expecting a tease for a future movie.
Captain America: Sometimes it leads to very little and it seems like it’s not worth it. And you wonder why you waited so long.
To say nothing of the whole thing with Michelle being "MJ" all along — in spite of her actress repeatedly saying that this would not be the case — and this fact being revealed rather anticlimactically in the context of the movie itself. There was a later clarification explaining that "MJ" isn't necessarily a stand-in for Mary Jane, but it makes one wonder why the movie had an insane degree of cover-up for what's effectively a non-spoiler.
John Leguizamo was approached for the part of Adrian Toomes before Michael Keaton was cast. Leguizamo was later offered a much smaller role to compensate for losing the part, but he refused, feeling he was used as a pawn to get Keaton back.
Leguizamo: "I was supposed to be the Vulture, we had negotiated and I was about to play him, and they said that Michael Keaton wanted it back and they asked me if I would give it up. I said, 'Well, okay I guess.' They said, 'No, we'll work with you again, we're gonna...' That's what happened there".
The idea of having Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes all the way back to its conception stages, as there had been three attempts at making the Spider-Man Trilogy a part of the universe. One of the drafts for Iron Man mentioned that Tony Stark had some degree of involvement in the creation of Otto Octavius' robotic tentacles, Nick Fury's appearance in The Stinger would've had him allude to Spider-Man, and Tobey Maguire was planned to cameo as Peter Parker in The Incredible Hulk. Due to Marvel Studios and Sony being unable to come to an agreement at the time, both attempts fell.
Jon Watts originally wanted Nick Fury to be the MCU character who would mentor Peter, which would have made it similar to the Ultimate comics and the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, but the execs suggested Iron Man instead since the characters already knew each other in Civil War. Fury or rather, Talos the Skrull filling in for Fury, wound later up mentoring Peter in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Iron Man dying in Avengers: Endgame likely being the reason why.
According to the writers, Vulture was originally going to be Peter's teacher, before they decided to have him away from the school.
The Pepper Potts cameo nearly didn't happen, but was added during reshoots.
One possible Spider-Man costume would have been based off of the one used during Superior Spider Man.
The original ending was going to have Peter reveal himself as Spider-Man in front of the press conference, in a recreation of the famous Civil War moment where he unmasks himself, which was changed to not doing this, though during Far from Home, the Karma Houdini lackeys of the defeated Mysterio use a doctored video where Mysterio outs him anyway.
The Ferry Rescue scene was almost much different. While a production picture showed Spidey saving someone while Iron Man, War Machine and Vision helped out, rumor claims that originally the Vulture would have been fully responsible for the Ferry's destruction and Peter would have come out of the incident more popular than Tony. The rumor said that Avi Arad forced them to change it.
There were originally going to be more "Rappin' With Cap" PSAs, where Captain America talks about fire safety, tooth decay and puberty.
John Francis Daley wanted to have a direct reference to Uncle Ben, a scene where May gives Ben's old clothes to Peter when he was getting ready for homecoming, but the idea was eventually abandoned.
Word of God: Martin Starr, who plays Mr. Harrington, previously had a cameo as "Computer Nerd" in The Incredible Hulk (2008). Kevin Feige eventually confirmed that both of Starr's roles are the same person.
When asked what he thinks the "Instant Kill Mode" does, Tom Holland expressed his belief that it was probably a Non-Indicative Name and was more akin to an EMP bomb than an actual mode for killing people. Avengers: Endgame eventually cleared it up that it was Exactly What It Says on the Tin, at least for the Iron Spider suit.
According to the screenwriters, Michelle has a difficult home life that informs her guarded and snarky demeanor.
, saying that Holland came the closest to how Stan envisioned the character (particularly in his age and height).