So far, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has given us two movies in a planned Spider-Man solo trilogy. Earlier this year, when Disney and Sony got into a dust-up over the rights to the character, it was looking like we might not get to see the conclusion to that trilogy. Fortunately, after Tom Holland himself called the CEOs of the companies and implored them to play nice, Spidey is back in the MCU and there’s a third movie on the way. Making the first two was certainly no picnic. So, here are 10 Amazing Behind-The-Scenes Facts About The MCU’s Spider-Man Movies.

Jon Watts made the cast watch a John Hughes marathon

Jon Watts’ take on the Spider-Man solo franchise was inspired by John Hughes’ beloved high school comedies. Since the cast was mostly made up of millennials who hadn’t seen Hughes’ ‘80s classics, Watts told the actors to watch a marathon of the directors’ teen comedies. So, the kids all went over to Tom Holland’s house in Atlanta and binge-watched the Hughes oeuvre in a day — Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club etc. — so that by the end of the day, they had an idea of the creative vision that Watts wanted to achieve with Spider-Man: Homecoming.

According to producer Eric Carroll, Quentin Beck was not supposed to wear the Mysterio costume as much as he does in Spider-Man: Far From Home. The plan was to bring in a huge movie star, like Jake Gyllenhaal, and assure them that they wouldn’t have to wear the big, heavy costume in every scene.

However, when it came to shooting the briefing scene in which Gyllenhaal was told he could just wear a t-shirt, leather jacket, and jeans, the actor asked, “Can I be in the costume? I really feel the character, I get it.” When you’ve got a fully practical Mysterio costume, you might as well use it as much as you can.

Tom Holland has to wear a thong under the Spider-Man costume

Whenever we see Peter Parker taking the Spider-Man suit on and off in his MCU solo outings, he’s wearing boxer shorts underneath it. However, Tom Holland has said that he has to wear a thong under the suit when he’s actually shooting scenes in it, because it’s skin-tight. Holland wasn’t sure about the thong at first: “The first thing you need to know: all I have on under that costume is a thong. They brought them in on my first day, like, ‘Here are your thongs.’ I had serious misgivings — would my a*****e ever be the same again? But I had to get used to it, even though I was thinking, no way, no way!”

Jon Watts found it easy to direct Jon Favreau

Jon Favreau is most recognizable to MCU fans as the actor who plays Happy Hogan in the films, but he’s primarily a director. He directed Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and a bunch of other non-Marvel movies. As such, Spider-Man director Jon Watts found it easy to direct Favreau, because as a fellow filmmaker, he understood the struggles of directing actors. Watts said, “There’s nothing better than directing another director. They know exactly what you’re going through and they never stop being a director. It was always nice to have Jon around, and I knew I could always lean on him.”

The Vulture was supposed to appear in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4

Long before Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man franchise rebooted Spidey’s cinematic outings, and then Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: Homecoming series did the same thing a couple of years later, Sam Raimi was planning to continue his Spider-Man saga beyond Spider-Man 3. He was going to direct Spider-Man 4, and if that was successful, Sony wanted him to helm Spider-Man 5 and Spider-Man 6, too. The plan to use the Vulture as the primary villain in Spider-Man: Homecoming was recycled from Raimi’s initial plan for Spider-Man 4, which would’ve seen John Malkovich cast as Adrian Toomes, and possibly Anne Hathaway as a female Vulture called “the Vulturess.”

Mysterio’s suit is an actual motion-capture suit

In the months since Spider-Man: Far From Home was released, its visual effects sequences (particularly the scenes in which Mysterio surrounds Spidey with illusions) have been praised as spectacular. In the comics, Quentin Beck isn’t a disgruntled Stark employee, but rather a special effects expert whose illusions are nothing more than movie magic. As a way to homage both the character’s legacy as a VFX creator and the work of the VFX team working on the film itself, the suit that Beck is wearing underneath the illusions — a black leotard with triangles all over it — is an actual motion-capture suit.

Timothée Chalamet and Asa Butterfield were on the shortlist to play Peter Parker

Now that Tom Holland has nailed the role of Peter Parker more closely than either of his big-screen predecessors, and he’s fit into the wider MCU by sharing incredible on-screen chemistry with Robert Downey, Jr., it’s hard to picture anyone else in the role. But he wasn’t the first choice to play the webslinger.

Before Holland was cast to debut as Spidey in Captain America: Civil War, the shortlist for the role reportedly included Asa Butterfield from Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Nat Wolff from Nickelodeon’s The Naked Brothers Band, Liam James from the coming-of-age dramedy The Way, Way Back, and Timothée Chalamet, who would go on to star in Call Me By Your Name.

The first assistant editor voiced E.D.I.T.H.

Spider-Man: Far From Home required yet another voice actor to come in and portray an artificial intelligence in the MCU, following Paul Bettany as J.A.R.V.I.S., Kerry Condon as F.R.I.D.A.Y., and Jennifer Connelly as K.A.R.E.N. This year, Far From Home introduced an A.I. Tony Stark developed for Peter Parker called E.D.I.T.H. (“Even Dead, I’m The Hero”). E.D.I.T.H. was voiced by Dawn Michelle King, the first assistant editor who worked on both Far From Home and its predecessor, Spider-Man: Homecoming. King also worked as first assistant editor on other MCU entries: Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, Ant-Man, and the Marvel One-Shot All Hail the King.

The failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 led Spidey into the MCU

Since Sony owns the rights to the lucrative Spider-Man movie franchise and hardly any other lucrative movie franchises, the studio was apprehensive when Marvel offered them a deal. Marvel wanted to include Spidey in a few MCU movies in exchange for Sony taking some of the profits, but Sony turned the deal down. Sony had big plans for a Spider-Man cinematic universe, starting with The Amazing Spider-Man 2. However, when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed at the box office and was maligned by fans, killing their hopes for a Spider-Man cinematic universe, the studio reconsidered its stance and accepted Marvel’s deal.

Jake Gyllenhaal almost played Peter Parker in Spider-Man 2

When Sam Raimi was prepping to direct Spider-Man 2 with Tobey Maguire back in the role of Peter Parker, tragedy struck when the actor was injured on the set of Seabiscuit. Sony was desperate to make a certain release date, so they didn’t want to delay filming to wait for Maguire’s injury to heal. Despite the horrible effects it would have on the franchise’s continuity, Sony had Jake Gyllenhaal waiting on the bench to take the role of Spidey if Maguire’s injuries didn’t clear up in time. Maguire healed and made the movie, freeing Gyllenhaal to play a Spider-Man villain years later in Far From Home.