J.K. Simmons confirms he's playing a "slightly different version" of J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home actor J.K. Simmons has confirmed he's playing an alternate version of J. Jonah Jameson in the movie.

"I think it's a slightly different version, and certainly from the creators of this current iteration of the story, it's a very different character," Simmons told the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "To me, it's a slightly different character. It's the same blowhard, the same guy with less hair."

He added: "The most important thing is that he's still the same blowhard, and he does have the same damn mustache – or close to it – and cigar, at least. And as is appropriate for that character, he's just a little comic relief thing that gets sprinkled lightly into the movie."

Simmons played Jameson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, which starred Tobey Maguire as the web-slinging hero, and returned for a brief cameo in Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Rumors abound that Maguire and Andrew Garfield will both be returning in No Way Home as their respective Spideys, and while the speculation remains unconfirmed for now, the second trailer makes it clear that a whole rogues gallery of villains will be arriving from all corners of the multiverse to battle it out with Tom Holland's Peter Parker. Plus, there's a theory that Garfield's Spider-Man will be the one to save MJ from her fall, and an alternate version of that trailer might include where the other Spideys could have been edited out.

This also isn't the first time Simmons has indicated he's playing a new version of Jameson. "To have the opportunity to kind of do a reboot of the character, I was eager to hang on to the things I really loved about it and totally open to letting go of some of that, and realizing we are in a more updated version of that universe," he told Den of Geek back in June.

Spider-Man: No Way Home arrives this December 17 in US theaters, and earlier to UK cinemas on December 15. Until then, check out our complete guide to Marvel Phase 4 to get up to speed on what the MCU has in store.

I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.