Tom Holland‘s enthusiasm for his role in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ is well-documented. He has expressed the desire to play Marvel’s Wall-Crawler for decades. It worked for ‘Harry Potter’, which spanned 16 years with the characters all remaining in high school. And like Daniel Radcliffe, Holland has a youthful appearance and energy which could make a similar journey possible for him. Of course, there’s always the option of eventually letting Peter graduate and grow up, which occurred in the comics, but many feel that once the character went to college, a certain magic was lost. That’s why so many reboots and adaptations tend to take the character back to his roots.
Holland signed on for six films and ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and ‘Homecoming’ mark the first two. He is also confirmed for ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and its unnamed sequel. And now it seems that the last two will be direct sequels to ‘Homecoming’.
Holland recently took part in a Q&A on the Facebook page for AlloCiné. After pretending to get shot by a Marvel sniper, Holland said:
“There is still a lot of room for Peter Parker and Spider-Man especially to grow in the next two movies. He’s definitely not the finished article by the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming and I really look forward to exploring the different ways he can grow up and go through puberty I guess. It’s going to be an exciting couple of movies… Yeah, there’ll be Spider-Man 2 and 3, it won’t be Homecoming 2 and 3.”
It’s not clear what he means by that last line, but presumably, the next two movies will simply bear new subtitles. ‘Homecoming’ is a symbolic name. Holland’s Peter Parker is going back to high school, like Tobey Maguire’s iteration in the first movie. It also marks the first solo Spidey set within the Marvel Universe, a different kind of “homecoming.” (Also, I wouldn’t rule out a school dance scene.)
It’s a bit unclear now as to whether the sequels will be set in the MCU. It would only make sense, but it has been previously rumored that only ‘Homecoming’ will be clearly part of the MCU with appearances by Iron Man and Captain America. The rest COULD be simply made by Sony, without Marvel Studios’ involvement and not directly reference the MCU.
Holland’s six movies could eventually make him THE cinematic Spider-Man. Tobey Maguire made only three films in the role and Andrew Garfield’s tenure was cut short at only two. It’s possible Holland could become as identifiable as the Wall-Crawler as Robert Downey Jr. is as Tony Stark.
How would you feel about seeing Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man for many years to come? Would you be disappointed if future ‘Spider-Man’ movies are disconnected from the Marvel Studios films?
We’ll have to wait and see how audiences react when ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’, directed by Jon Watts, opens on July 7, 2017.
