Marvel’s Kevin Feige Says ‘Spider-Man’ Will Be Like a John Hughes Movie

A lot of Marvel fans were a little concerned about the age (both actual and perceived) of new Spider-Man actor Tom Holland. Let’s face it, he has a baby face, and with that came a lot of detractors who said, “it’s Spider-Man not Spider-Boy.” This logic is highly flawed (Spider-Man was 15-years-old when bitten by the radioactive spider, four years younger than Holland), but Marvel president Kevin Feige has explained the choice to go young with Spider-Man saying they were very much influenced by John Hughes’ films.

Feige spoke to Birth.Movies.Death. while promoting Ant-Man this past weekend and spoke about what will make Sony’s upcoming movie, and Holland’s version of the character, different from all the other Spider-Man movies.

It’s the soap opera in high school, and those supporting characters, that are interesting. Just as we hadn’t seen a heist movie in a long time, or a shrinking movie in a long time, we haven’t seen a John Hughes movie in a long time. Not that we can make a John Hughes movie — only John Hughes could — but we’re inspired by him, and merging that with the superhero genre in a way we haven’t done before excites us [...] Particularly at that age, in high school, everything feels like life or death. The tests feel like life or death. Coming home from being out with your friends seemed like life or death. The stakes are high at that age

It’s honestly kinda...perfect?

Part of the initial appeal and success of Spider-Man as a character was the fact that he was a high school outcast, and few people did high school outcasts better than John Hughes (a Weird Science-era Anthony Michael Hall would’ve been a great Peter Parker). Marvel and Sony frankly had to do something completely different with this movie, because no one wants to sit through another Spider-Man origin. (Considering we’ll see a fully-formed Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, we know Peter Parker will already be the webslinger by the time he gets his own movie.)

In addition to that news Feige also hinted at who would be Spider-Man’s first villain saying, “Right now we’re interested in seeing villains we haven’t seen before.” That would leave the door open for some great Spider-Man villains like Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, Vulture, Scorpion or Alistair Smythe (just hopefully not Carnage).

Spider-Man opens in theaters on July 28, 2017.