Major spoilers for the latest Spidey adventure can be found all through this entire article, including in the comments from director Jon Watts himself. So, if you don’t want to be spoiled, please skedaddle.
The multiverse is something that Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse was able to explore in animated form, but the live action MCU hadn’t jumped into a concept that convoluted ahead of Spider-Man: Far From Home. Although the early trailers for the latest web slinger adventure seemed to indicate the MCU would finally be taking the plunge, that’s not what happens in the movie.
Still, Spider-Man: Far From Home director Jon Watts has a pretty cool theory regarding Nick Fury and what he actually thinks is going on with the multiverse within the MCU. While doing press ahead of the release, he told CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell that Talos might actually not find the concept of the multiverse to be too wacky thanks to previous experience. Per Watts:
I do think about the multiverse thing. People were really excited about it. And we're not saying that there couldn't be a multiverse in this movie. We are saying that what Jake is saying -- what Mysterio is saying in the movie -- is bullshit. But there's something that I think about is that the fact that Nick Fury, who's actually Talos, completely believes this story about the multiverse makes me wonder… now this is off book now, but like, does that mean that Talos is aware of some sort of multiverse? Because there's… this is fan-fiction, to me. But he seemed to accept it!
Prior to the release of Spider-Man: Far From Home, the trailers indicated the multiverse theory was heading to the MCU. Of course, Mysterio is a bit of a trickster in the comics, so many people thought he might have a trick up his sleeve this time around as well.
In fact, in the movie, there’s a lot of tricking going on. Mysterio is actually Quentin Beck, a man who in this big screen universe is not from another Earth and is not, in fact, superpowered at all. Instead, he’s one of Tony Stark’s disgruntled former employees who tricks Spider-man into giving him access to E.D.I.T.H., a Stark-owned artificial intelligence system that can wreak havoc and keep up his superpowered appearance.
He’s not the only trickster, either, as we learn at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home that Nick Fury isn’t even Nick Fury and is instead Talos, whom we met in Captain Marvel earlier this year. Nick Fury’s seemingly in space and Talos has been holding down the fort on Earth in his absence, although it didn’t go particularly well in Far From Home.
Basically, though, what director Jon Watts told us is that while Marvel basically rickrolled fans in regards to the existence of a multiverse at this point in time, it’s not a concept that is totally unbelievable, which is why Peter Parker (with his love for science and tech) totally trusts Quentin Beck in the first place. Talos' past experiences with the concept of the multiverse may also be why he had been fooled at first.
Of course, Jon Watts cannot confirm this is the direction that Marvel is going in Phase Four, so we should still take it as a fan theory, albeit one coming from someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about the MCU and may know more than he lets on.
No matter how it turns out, we can confirm the multiverse is out of the cards for now, but may be in the cards later. Still, multiverse or no, Spider-Man: Far From Home is an intriguing watch, and you can catch it yourself in theaters right now ahead of all the big Phase Four news likely to come down the pipeline soon.
