Even though the Marvel Cinematic Universe boasts a deep bench of superheroes, there was no denying that Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark was the main man of the Infinity Saga. As well as being the focal point of the movie that launched the entire franchise, all of the major plot threads connected to Iron Man in some way, and even when he showed up in other people’s films, he was all over the marketing.
RDJ took top billing in all four Avengers pics, and was undoubtedly the face of the MCU, despite his last solo adventure being released six years prior to Endgame. Now that he’s ridden off into the sunset, though, there’s a gap at the very top of the studio’s hierarchy and no shortage of candidates to fill it, with Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel frequently the subject of speculation that she’s set to step up to the plate in a big way.
However, insider Daniel Richtman is claiming today that Kevin Feige wants to make Tom Holland’s Spider-Man the next face of the MCU, although that’s a difficult proposition given that the web-slinger is a Sony character. The two parties recently reached another agreement after it looked as if Sony would stage a coup and ensure that Spidey was the exclusive property of the SPUoMC, but we don’t know for certain how many films the new deal covers.
As Richtman explains:
I still hear Feige wants Spider-Man to be the face of the MCU even with Sony involved. He doesn’t want Spidey to exit after the 2-movie deal is done. He wants him to be the new Iron Man of the MCU (either Peter or Miles or both).
Sony have already botched two Spider-Man franchises of their own, and handing the creative keys to Marvel brought them the highest-grossing release in their history, so both sides clearly benefitted from it immensely. However, if the SPUoMC takes off as well as the execs in the boardroom are hoping it will, there’s every chance that they could play hardball once again.
