It’s certainly been quite a week for Tom Holland. Ever since the news first broke that Sony and Marvel Studios were ending their working agreement on the Spider-Man franchise, with Sony regaining full control of the character, the speculation surrounding the iconic superhero’s future adventures has dominated the cultural conversation.
While it took a few days for the 23 year-old to publicly comment on the situation, the actor recently confirmed that he would continue playing Spider-Man, just not as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some reports indicated that the split between the two rival studios was motivated by money, but despite fans being desperate for the character to remain part of the MCU, it seems that Sony are intent on moving forward on the franchise without Marvel Studios’ involvement, with Kevin Feige seemingly admitting defeat on the matter.
Holland doesn’t seem to be too affected by the ongoing saga though, having recently found the time to go hiking with Robert Downey Jr., as well as appearing at this past weekend’s D23 Expo to promote his upcoming Pixar movie Onward. Of course, it will likely be a long time before he has to deal with questions that don’t involve Spider-Man, and in a recent interview, the actor dropped some hints about the direction of the franchise, saying:
“It’s really exciting, the ideas we have for how we can expand the Spider-Man world and bring new characters into it, and crossover with other people, it’s really exciting. And it’s only going to get bigger and better from here, which is great. There’s definitely more to come. We sat down with some of our creatives. We pitched Spider-Man 3, which is going to be something very special, it’s going to be something very different. I’m just so grateful that Marvel changed my life and allowed my dreams to come true and Sony allowing me to continue living my dream.”
The mention of crossovers certainly sounds as though Holland’s Spider-Man will find himself head-to-head with Tom Hardy’s Venom at some point, which has reportedly always been a top priority for Sony. The studio has been intent to launch their own Marvel universe with or without Spider-Man for a while, but now that the character is their exclusive property once again, a whole host of new opportunities have just opened up.