Everyone’s favorite young maybe-couple Hollywood, Tom Holland and Zendaya, are out and about, promoting Spider-Man: Far From Home. Jake Gyllenhaal is tagging along, making him the world’s handsomest third wheel. The three of them together are Zendallandenhaal, which sounds like a medieval province in Sweden. They’re doing a full press roll-out for Far From Home, but I feel like the run up to this movie has been a little muted? Not that I expect it to be anything other than a gargantuan hit. It’s more like, we’ve all already agreed to go see this and don’t really need the reminders so the press feels a little like we’re being shyly waved at from the corner, and not screamed at full in the face, as is usually the case with superhero movies. Of course everyone is curious to see how the world is doing after Endgame, Far From Home probably doesn’t need any more promotion than that. (Personally, I will be checking to see if there are any Black Widow memorials set up anywhere, or if everyone already forgot her and are chalking it up to a Tony Stark single-handed victory, as all the ads make it seem. #JusticeForNat)
Zendaya caused a stir a couple days ago when she unveiled red hair for this promotional tour:
Everyone thought this means she’s playing Ariel in a live-action Little Mermaid remake (would watch), but she said it’s to honor Mary Jane Watson, the Spider-Man character she is NOT playing, because Marvel and Sony are F-CKING COWARDS. Never let them off the hook for this “My name is Michelle, but call me MJ” bullsh-t. They’re trying to have it both ways—a non-white MJ, but leaving the door open for the REAL MJ to show up sometime in the future. It’s a total cop-out and they should have to answer for it constantly, all the time, with no relief. I feel like Zendaya’s red hair is low key shade at Marvel and Sony (Kevin Feige is on the press tour with them and looking at that red hair every day and being reminded of What Could Have Been).
The early reviews for Far From Home are, as expected, very good. People are particularly raving about “huge reveals” and Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance as Mysterio, which makes me think he is playing the classic comic book sh-thead version of the character. There has been speculation, because Mysterio in the comics for much of his history is basically a conman. But lately, there is a new take that has Mysterio actually hopping dimensions, as is referenced in the trailers. So, it could go either way. He could be lying, or this could be the newer, inter-dimensional version of the character for real, which would fit in with a post-Endgame world in which there are now multiple branch realities (thanks to Loki and whatever the f-ck Steve did to the timeline). We’ll have to see how it shakes out with Mysterio. For now, we have these photos of Zendallandenhaal being very photogenic in London. Enjoy.
