The Real Reason Behind That Spider-Man Reference in ‘Challengers’

Of all the gasp-out-loud scenes in Challengers (The ending! Tashi’s injury! That churros shot!), one moment that hit audiences as hard as the pounding techno soundtrack was an unexpected line about Spider-Man.

The Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s super hot film about a love triangle playing out in the world of Grand Slam tennis probably wasn’t expected to be a reference point for the Marvel Universe, which is what made the shout-out even more impactful for the audience.

The scene: down on his luck tennis ace Art (played by Mike Faist) and his wifeager/coach Tashi (Zendaya) are having yet another sports-based row, when their daughter Lily interrupts to ask if she can switch off the tennis to watch Spider-Man: Across The Spider Verse.

Cue stunned gasps from the audience (at least, at the screening Esquire attended). Spider-Man? The very same franchise in which Zendaya plays MJ? The films where she met her now long-term partner, Tom Holland, who plays actual Spider-Man? Well, sort of: while Zendaya is not in the animated chapter of the franchise her on-screen daughter mentions, the actor is of course in the live-action trilogy. Wow, what a tangled cross-referencing web the film weaves.

Except, it turns out, this wasn’t a neat little Easter Egg for the Spidey stans. In fact, Guadagnino told Entertainment Weekly that he was responsible for this line – the film is written by Justin Kuritzkes (the partner of Past Lives writer-director Celine Song) – but that he hadn’t made the connection at the time.

Instead, he chose it to make it easier for rights reasons, as he explained: “When you get rights for something to be used in a movie, it’s very complicated. Amy Pascal, our amazing producer, was of help there. I said, ‘Amy, can we use one of your catalogue titles, so it’s going to be easier to clear them?’ [Lily]’s a girl. She’s not going to choose to watch The Social Network or The Post, but maybe she’s going to watch a Spider-Man cartoon. So, I said, ‘Why not Spider-Verse?’”

It wasn’t until after filming the shot that the director cottoned on, he added. “Now, I realize that it sounded like an in-joke, which, you know, the unconscious guides us all the time.” Must have been his innate Spidey sense.

This story originally appeared on Esquire.co.uk.

* Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.