Choosing the actor to be the next Peter Parker or Spider-Man was such a lengthy process. After all, it is going to be a very important role in the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In the end, MCU decided to go with Tom Holland, and one of the reasons why he was chosen as compared to the other actors was his amazing chemistry and rapport with two other superhero actors - Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) and Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America).
So choosing the director for the standalone "Spider-Man" movie involved the same gruelling selection process. It was reported that there were five directors who were contending for the job. All of them were big names, and yet surprisingly, none of them got the job.
In the end, it was Marvel execs went with Jon Watts, and MCU president Kevin Feige is explaining why they chose him.
"It was myself and Amy Pascal and Tom Rothman, and also Jeremy Latcham and Louis D'Esposito at Marvel where involved in that," he told Collider in an interview. "We met with a lot of people and came down to a couple of very, very, very good finals candidates. Jon just - we really liked his movie 'Cop Car,' we met with him four, five, or six times, and each time he had more and more interesting things to say. And at Marvel, it always comes down to ultimately, 'We can make a movie with this person for two years, we could spend almost every day with this person for two years. Let's go.'"
It's difficult for directors to have creative differences with studio heads, especially since their superhero universe is expanding and more and more characters are getting involved. It's probably the reason why Alan Taylor did not like "Thor: The Dark World," and why Jon Favreau passed on directing "Iron Man 3."
Joss Whedon got burned out while doing "Avengers: Age of Ultron," and Edgar Wright got replaced by Peyton Reed to direct "Ant-Man."
Of course, there are others who forged fantastic relationships with studio heads and had no problem at all seeing their creative vision unfold. James Gunn, filmmaker of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and its sequel "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" has nothing but praises for Marvel, while the Russo brothers Anthony and Joseph worked so well with Marvel on "Captain America: Civil War" that they will be taking on the next two "Avengers" movies, which are "Avengers: Infinity War Parts 1 and 2."