The world is bracing for Tom Holland’s return to Spider-Man in a big screen adventure. Spider-Man: No Way Home will arrive in theaters on Dec. 17, and is expected to tear a hole through the multiverse that neither he nor Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) will be able to contain or repair. But earlier this year, Holland made a surprise appearance in a non-Spidey movie when his character, Peter Parker, appeared on a television screen in the mid-credits sequence for Venom: Let There Be Carnage. I wondered when Holland found out that news, and what his reaction was to it.
CinemaBlend recently sat down with Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon to discuss Spider-Man: No Way Home, but for a moment, I rewound to Holland’s earlier appearance as the wallcrawler in the Venom sequel, Let There Be Carnage. When I asked him how he felt learning he’d be a small part of that growing world, Holland said:
I was incredibly excited. … I was on set. I was shooting. Amy Pascal came over to me and had a conversation about it. I was very excited. Tom Hardy came to set only a few days later to shoot his side of the Venom tag. Obviously I have worked with Tom before, but in a very, very different circumstance. I'm a huge fan of his, and a huge fan of the franchise. So I was really honored to be a part of it. And it was a really nice little icing on the cake for the fans to show that these two worlds are interchangeable, and can come together. So what that means for the future, I don't know. But it was exciting, and Christmas presents are on me, guys.
That quote goes a long way towards explaining why Tom Hardy was photographed wearing a Spider-Man: No Way Home crew cap recently. He went to the No Way Home set, and shot his bit that eventually became the mid-credits stinger for Let There Be Carnage. However, one thing I was wondering was this: If Venom 2 had arrived in theaters in 2020, as was planned before COVID pushed everything back, would that tag still have been present? I put that question to Spider-Man: No Way Home producer Amy Pascal, and she clarified:
I would say that it would have, yes. Yeah. That’s a fun little thing.
A fun little thing that opens up a world of possibility for Spider-Man moving forward. Venom (Tom Hardy) is now in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which should create several headaches for our beloved wallcrawler. But we have to see how Spider-Man: No Way Home concludes, to see where it leaves Peter Parker… and what might come next for everyone.
