Since it was announced in June that Spider-Man would be appearing in the upcoming Marvel film Captain America: Civil War, fans around the world have been clamouring to find out more. Slowly, we're starting to get some answers.

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In an interview with ComicBook.com, directors Joe and Anthony Russo discussed the approach they took to bringing Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and how they wanted to go in a different direction to previous iterations.

"We took a very personal approach to the character," said Joe Russo. "He was my favourite character growing up, so the opportunity to bring Spider-Man to the screen is a dream come true."

The pair discussed the importance of finding a young actor to play the role, as opposed to previous depictions where older actors were hired to play a school kid. British actor Tom Holland, of course, is the actor who finally got the big gig.

"For us, it was extremely important that we cast somebody very close to the age of a high school student," Joe Russo said. "We wanted an energy and charisma from the character."

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Along with the realistic age of the character, the directors mentioned that they were bringing Spidey into a darker, grittier universe than the colourful pages of comic books he was being pulled from. Anthony Russo said that bringing Spider-Man into the Captain America universe meant grounding the character in reality.

"It's a very specific tonal world," he said. "It's a little more grounded and a little more hard-core contemporary."

This approach includes creating realistic housing for the teenage hero, which Joe Russo said was poorly executed in previous films.

"A character growing up with his aunt in New York, a single income family… Where would they live?" he said. "You go look at the home that Tobey Maguire lived in in (director Sam) Raimi’s Spider-Man... those were very expensive homes."

But the pair made sure to reiterate that they were fans of the previous Spider-Man movies, especially the first two directed by Sam Raimi. They simply said that they wanted to create a "more passionate and more well-rounded" viewing experience for fans.

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Captain America: Civil War screens in cinemas 6th May 2016

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