And Mysterio employs enough deep-cut comic-book references — including a back story involving an alternate version of Earth — that even super fans might find themselves convinced at first.

SOMMERS That definitely did help. Any time we find ourselves with a twist or surprise reveal of something like this, we want to do as much as we can to protect it and distract from it ahead of time.

McKENNA What we kept saying is that he had to feel like a real character, so we wanted to give him a tragic back story with all the details of coming from another world, and make sure that the Elementals he’s fighting felt like a growing, Avengers-level threat. Obviously, it was all smoke and mirrors, but we wanted to make it as believable as possible, and what helped was making Nick Fury — the most paranoid man on the planet — seemingly fall for it.

SOMMERS If you think of what Mysterio is doing as being a con, then a smart con man is going to employ other people to help sell his lie.

In the end-credit scene, we find out that Nick isn’t Nick at all — instead, a shape-shifting alien from “Captain Marvel” has been posing as Nick Fury for the entire movie.

McKENNA Thematically, we wanted to have as many illusions and twists as possible, and up through the end of the movie, we wanted to make you question everything you’ve seen beforehand. But it was definitely an idea that came later in the process, and it helped, because if anyone in the audience had issues with Nick Fury falling for Quentin’s nonsense, it was a nice safety valve to have.