Posted in: Disney, Movies, Sony | Tagged: disney, j jonah jameson, J.K. Simmons, marvel, movies, sony, spider-man, spider-man: far from home

J.K. Simmons Talks His Original Spider-Man Audition and MCU Future

When the first run of Spider-Man movies came out it was kind of amazing how perfect actor J.K. Simmons was to play J. Jonah Jameson. It was like Jameson stepped off of the page when Simmons was on screen and even as the superhero industry has taken over the entire pop culture landscape he is still the most perfect casting in the genre so far. The first reboot of Spider-Man didn't even try to recast the role and everyone was wondering what Marvel, Disney, and Sony were going to do with the MCU version of the character. By the time the post-credits scene on Spider-Man: Far From Home came around everyone was fairly sure that they were going to wait for another movie to introduce Jameson. Then, out of nowhere, was Simmons as a reimagined version of Jameson doing an Alex Jones impersonation. It's a fascinating angle to take the character and Simmons recently revealed to Entertainment Weekly that while he is signed on to do more movies he hasn't heard one way or another if he's going to be in any other movies.

"I don't know if I would use the word expect. It's great to have the opportunity, as these things evolve, to be one of the holdovers from the previous version."

It's kind of funny that Marvel and Disney just didn't bother to recast Jameson even though it would have made complete sense for them to do so. Jameson also talked about his auction process when it came to signing on to the 2002 version of Spider-Man at Sony Pictures. Jameson said that he really needed to convince them he was the man for the job because he wasn't that well known in 2002. He also talked about which scene he had to do for the audition.

"The producers and the people at Sony, they needed to be convinced, because obviously, there were a lot of much more high-profile actors that they had in mind that would help with the box office," Simmons says. "It was very nerve-wracking. … It included a scene where the Green Goblin breaks through the windows and picks me up by the throat, lifts me up in the air, and is strangling me. I'm holding the script pages, reading the scene on the audition, but then at the same time, trying to…" (here he makes a hilariously cartoonish strangling noise) "…pretending I'm being lifted by the neck and choked."

To say that Sony made the right choice in hiring J.K. Simmons would be an understatement and it was so awesome to see him show up at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home. Even if we never see him again Jameson will forever be on the list of perfect superhero casting, right at the top, the undisputed champion, right where he belongs. Now bring me pictures of Spider-Man!

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