Sony revealed to have sabotaged Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man 4,’ but Marvel Studios may still have a secret way to save it

Peter Parker and Doctor Strange really did mess up the timeline in Spider-Man: No Way Home, huh? By the time this December rolls around, marking three years since that epic threequel’s release, we’ll have had four — count ’em, four — of Sony’s sub-par Spidey spinoffs force themselves in our faces, and yet no Spider-Man 4.

Given that, until Deadpool & Wolverine came along, No Way Home was easily the Multiverse Saga’s most successful entry, you might think it a surprise why a follow-up is taking so long. Generally, we’ve assumed it was a problem with Tom Holland’s busy schedule. Maybe that’s true, but the biggest reason might actually be a story one. In the wake of a new trailer for Kraven the Hunter, the next of Sony’s Marvel movies to plague our screens, alleged intel indicates what the biggest hitch hampering Spider-Man 4 really is.

According to insider Daniel Richtman, the fourth film is running seriously short on villains. “Kraven has Rhino, Calypso, and Chameleon,” the scooper explained. “Whenever Sony uses a villain, they block Marvel Studios from using them, which means there aren’t many left for MCU Spider-Man to face off against.”

While this is unconfirmed information, it does make a lot of sense with what we know. For instance, director Jon Watts originally made no secret of the fact he planned to make Kraven the main villain of his third Spider-Man, but maybe Sony’s solo venture for the character is why that didn’t happen. Similarly, there’s been no attempt to introduce MCU versions of Venom or Carnage to date.

So, if we do take this as read (and blue), who does that leave Spidey to tango with in Spider-Man 4? Well, I guess there’s Scorpion, last seen in the Homecoming post-credits scene… Mr. Negative from the Insomniac games could work…. Uh, how about the Grizzly?

Alternatively, if much of Spidey’s rogues gallery is off-limits, how about plucking someone from the MCU’s own pool of bad guys?

Marvel has already primed the perfect villain for Spider-Man 4 to take on the webhead

If Marvel is smart, the studio could turn this supposed restriction into a major win — stop trying to fight Sony for Spider-Man villains and instead make the main villain of Spider-Man 4 the Kingpin. Wilson Fisk battling the wallcrawler is something fans — including Vincent D’Onofrio himself — have been asking for since Daredevil began in 2014, and the time has never been more right for this to become a reality.

Following his return in Hawkeye, Echo established that a significant development for Fisk is about to occur in Daredevil: Born Again. The upcoming Disney Plus revival is expected to adapt the Devil’s Reign arc from the comics, which saw Kingpin become the Mayor of New York. Fisk’s power is only growing and growing, then, so odds are Matt Murdock’s going to need some help taking his old enemy down. Like, for example, a kid from Queens who also likes to dress in red and jump around rooftops…

Tragically, The Cosmic Circus is claiming that Spider-Man 4 is undergoing “a story shift” due to the Russos’ Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars necessitating some changes, with it said that a Kingpin crossover will have to wait until next time. If this is true, Marvel might want to reconsider, though. Otherwise, we’re looking at Tom Holland’s grand return seeing him reduced to fighting that guy who dresses like a kangaroo.