There was simply no real reason to change J. Jonah Jameson’s personality in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

J.K. Simmons initially made Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man trilogy more worthwhile via his role as J. Jonah Jameson. The angry, mustached, and always-smoking J. Jonah Jameson made Peter Parker’s life absolute hell, until the time Maguire got a bit of the Venom attitude we see Tom Hardy portraying today.

Simmons then returned as a variant of his iconic character in 2022’s No Way Home, but fans were given multiple reasons to be unhappy about the reprisal. That also seems to be true with respect to the actor himself, who claimed in an interview that he actually did advise the creators to stick to the rendition which initially became famous via the Sony movies.

However, as the bald head, and his arguably annoying persona in No Way Home proves, his advice was not heeded.

J.K. Simmons wanted Marvel to stick to iconic J. Jonah Jameson persona

The original J. Jonah Jameson whom we saw in the Maguire trilogy had his fair share of hilarious kinks. He was under the thumb of his wife, would always smoke cigars, and had a fearsome temper. He also regularly toyed with Peter Parker, even if towards the end Jameson arguably softens towards our web-slinging superhero.

The character also featured the iconic short moustache, and a flattop. However, No Way Home ended up making major changes, and showed a bald Jameson who was clean-shaven. That was something J.K. Simmons himself fought against, according to Slash Film:

[Sony told me] ‘No, we don’t want you to have the flattop haircut and I was like, ‘Wait, wait, wait. What?’ […] ‘Yeah, we don’t want the cigar and the mustache,’ […] So, it was a negotiation then at that point. […] Obviously, the most important thing is that he’s still the same blowhard and he does have the same damn mustache, close to it, and cigar at least.

The result, apart from the physical changes, was also astraight up change in personality, which was always bound to irk fans. However, it evidently angered the actor as well, as he did his best to convince the creators to stick to the iteration that was already a hit.

Sony did not want J. Jonah Jameson to have the same personality

It appears as though the stark change in personality was in itself another way in which Sony attempted to defend its take on the Spider-Man universe. The character-sharing deal between Sony and Marvel has led to a range of complications, leading to the latter’s inability to integrate a range of Sony properties in the overall MCU.

That has been true with respect to Tom Hardy’s Venom, who, despite evidently having an arc planned that would have resulted in him entering the MCU, does not look likely to get there anytime soon. Sony has had their fair share of struggles with respect to the Marvel Comics characters and the various projects they have included them in.

However, the Spider-Man trilogy is one of their biggest successes to date, and it gave a range of characters to fans that they still appreciate. That includes the likes of Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane. The same list also includes J.K. Simmons’ J. Jonah Jameson.

Hence, Sony was always bound to be wary, and evidently did not want the same iteration to be a part of No Way Home. Spider-Man: No Way Home can be watched on Disney+.