Remember Sony’s Spider-Man Universe? It wasn’t too long ago when spinoffs based on Spider-Man villains were given their own movies separate from Marvel Studios' release schedule. But there’s one thing about them they were always missing: our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Now, Tom Holland has opened up about why that was the case and whether there was ever a world where he could have appeared in these movies.
After a string of flops (aside from the Venom movies) including Morbius, Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter, Sony hit the pause button on them. And, now reportedly the studio has plans to do a reboot. But why didn’t Spider-Man come to play with these iconic characters from his own comic books? According to Holland:
To be perfectly honest with you, I think that [Tom] Rothman is a really smart guy, and I think that he was building this universe, and they had this plan to kind of merge the worlds at some point. And I think that they just never found the right time to do so.
Tom Holland was asked if he was part of the behind-the-scenes conversations regarding whether it made sense for his Spider-Man to be in Sony’s spinoffs. Apparently, the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures had grand plans to bring Spidey into these films. However, the franchise just never got there in the planned timeline. As Holland added during an episode of Happy, Sad, Confused:
I think it was on the cards. And, there were never any battles of like ‘We want you to be in this movie’ and ‘I don't want to be in this movie’. That never happened. It was just like ‘We'll get there’. We just never got there.
It should also be noted that Tom Holland has been pretty dang busy since signing on to play Spider-Man back in 2015. The actor has portrayed the superhero in seven films, including his debut in Captain America: Civil War, four standalone Spider-Man films and two Avengers movies. And that’s without mentioning his career outside of playing Peter Parker.
Holland also said that Sony was “feeling great confidence” about his Spider-Man franchise and his connection to the MCU. Rothman and the other executives also apparently wanted them to “just continue on their path”. The Brand New Day actor also shared that he was never “forced” into a Spider-Man spinoff that he then had to push back against, or anything like that.
Then, Holland was prompted about the crossover with Tom Hardy’s Venom that was long anticipated, but then frustratingly never came to pass in Venom 3 – even after that Last Carnage mid-credits scene. Holland kept things open-ended. In his words:
Look, anything could happen… Just wait and see, bro. Just wait and see.
We have heard rumors about Marvel Studios wanting to do their own thing with the symbiote arc. Is it possible some Venom redemption is already in talks somehow? The current Spidey isn’t spilling anymore tea after spoiling things before, but I guess we’ll find out when we find out. At the moment, we don’t know about any other Spider-Man Universe spinoffs in the works.
Until then, you can see Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, now in theaters.
