Spider-Man: Far From Home director Jon Watts on meeting Jake Gyllenhaal

When you want a big star to sign up to your movie, you pull out everything. But the Spider-Man director couldn’t have dreamt of setting this up.

WARNING: Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame and mild spoilers for Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far From Home director Jon Watts calls meeting Jake Gyllenhaal “one of the craziest experiences” of his life.

The pair was at a restaurant in LA, sitting down together for the first time to discuss the potential of Gyllenhaal signing up to play Quentin Beck, also known as Mysterio, a caped figure that shows up at an opportune time in the Spider-Man sequel.

“It was really windy outside, like there was a tornado about to blow through,” Watts tells news.com.au. “There were pieces of palm trees flying down the street.

“And as we were talking about this character who in the comics is a master of illusion and deception, the windows at the restaurant started blowing open and banging against the wall. And then the lights and the power went out, and they had to bring out candles.

“So we’re eating our food by candlelight and telling these stories about Mysterio and the whole thing seemed too perfect, I think there was no way he wasn’t going to do the movie.”

Jake Gyllenhaal as iconic comic book character Mysterio.

Spider-Man: Far From Home comes on the heels of the gargantuan movie experience that is Avengers: Endgame, and acts as a pseudo-sequel of sorts while also telling a specific story about Peter Parker (Tom Holland), and setting up the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next phase.

That’s a lot of pressure for Watts, a 38-year-old director who before Spider-Man: Homecoming was best known for his two indie flicks, Clown and Cop Car.

“We knew this film was going to come out almost immediately after Endgame. So many crazy things happened in Endgame (and Avengers: Infinity War) — half the universe disappeared and then comes back, time travel is possible, Spider-Man goes to space, Tony Stark sacrifices himself and saves the world.

“There are so many paradigm-shifting events in that film. We knew we were going to have to deal with the implications of those.

“The challenge was to find out how to do that while also maintaining the more lighthearted tone we had established in Homecoming.”

RELATED: Spider-Man: From Home review

Jon Watts was best known for his indie movies before Spider-Man Picture: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Watts and screenwriters Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna were some of the few people in the world who knew how Endgame was going to play out and developed Far From Home at the same time as the two Avengers epics.

“I knew everything that happened in Endgame so I was living with these secrets for such a long time so I was nervous that was going to somehow spoil something, so that’s very stressful.”

Avengers spoilers were only one aspect of the stress that came with helming such a high-profile movie, though Watts admits he learnt after the experience on Homecoming “that there’s a time to worry about something and a time to not”.

But that doesn’t mean the pressure is off when there’s that much money at stake, and that many fans to please.

“Far From Home was definitely a lot more pressure. To the point that the movie is about that feeling — suddenly the world is looking at you and saying ‘that was crazy, what’s next?’ and you freak out and you just want to go away on vacation and you can’t.

“So I took all of that stress I was feeling and tried to use it to tell the story.”

RELATED: Spider-Man: Far From Home end-credits explained (SPOILERS)

Spider-Man: Far From Home is Tom Holland’s fifth time in the role

Spider-Man: Far From Home is set eight months after what the MCU is referring to, in-universe, as “The Blip” and Peter is now a famous superhero. But what he really wants is to be a teenager, engaging in occasional heroics in his hometown, not as a global, interplanetary crusader.

So instead of grappling with the new dynamics of his life, Peter goes on holidays or, more precisely, a school excursion with his science class to Europe.

His crush MJ will be on the trip and he has a plan involving the Eiffel Tower and a Black Dahlia necklace — teenage boys are not very original when it comes to wooing.

Of course, plans change and Peter has to step up. The question is whether or not he’s ready.

RELATED: Tom Holland opens up about not working with Robert Downey Jr.

Jon Watts with his Spider-Man stars Tom Holland, Jacob Batalon, Zendaya and Jake Gyllenhaal Picture: Isabel Infantes/AFP

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The movie spans across iconic European spots, and Watts and his team filmed on location on Venice’s St. Mark’s Square and Rialto Bridge, London’s Tower Bridge and Prague’s Charles Bridge.

“A lot of bridges! Our entire time in Prague, I don’t think I saw a single moment of daylight. I was living like a vampire.

“We knew from the very beginning that not only did we want this movie to be a European road trip, but we wanted to actually go to these locations and shoot there as much as possible because there is a level of scope you can only get from being in the real place that’s just impossible to recreate in a studio.”

Watts says that when he was prepping for the film, he struggled to find many films about American teenagers going on road trips in Europe so ended up watching a diverse catalogue of movies including European romances to the globetrotting Mission: Impossible and James Bond franchises.

“It was really an excuse to watch a lot of different stuff.”

Spider-Man: Far From Home is in cinemas now

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