Tom Holland said at a recent press conference with the Critics Choice Association (via Collider) that he will only move forward with a fourth “Spider-Man” movie if the team involved can do the character justice. Holland has played Peter Parker/Spider-Man in three standalone films — “Spider-Man: Homecoming” (2017), “Spider-Man: Far From Home” (2019) and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021) — while also appearing in Marvel blockbusters like “Avengers: Endgame.”
“All I can say is that we have been actively engaging in conversations about what it could potentially look like for a fourth rendition of my character,” Holland told press. “Whether or not we can find a way to do justice to the character is another thing.”
“I feel very protective over Spider-Man,” the actor continued. “I feel very, very lucky that we were able to work on a franchise that got better with each movie, that got more successful with each movie, which I think is really rare, and I want to protect his legacy. So, I won’t make another one for the sake of making another one. It will have to be worth the while of the character.”
Two of Holland’s standalone “Spider-Man” films earned over $1 billion at the box office, while “No Way Home” nearly broke the $2 billion mark with its $1.92 billion gross to become the sixth highest-grossing film of all time (unadjusted for inflation). Given Marvel Studios‘ lackluster run at the box office as of late (“The Marvels” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” both flopped this year), there’s no doubt execs want Holland back as Spider-Man on the big screen.
MarvelStudios presidentKevin Feige confirmed to Entertainment Weekly in Februarythat Holland’s fourth “Spider-Man” movie was being written at the time. “All I will say is that we have the story,” he said then. “We have big ideas for that, and our writers are just putting pen to paper now.”
Development on the “Spider-Man 4” script was paused amid the WGA strike, with Holland telling PvNew in June, “We’ve put the meetings on pause in solidarity with the writers. There’s been multiple conversations had, but at this point it’s very, very early stages.”
Given Holland’s new comments, it appears conversations for “Spider-Man 4” are back on now that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are over. Marvel has not officially announced or dated a fourth “Spider-Man” movie starring Holland.
“Are we going to make another movie? Of course we are,” franchise producer Amy Pascal told PvNew over the summer at the “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” premiere. “We’re in the process, but the writers strike, nobody is working during the strike. We’re all being supporters and whenever they get themselves together, we’ll get started.”
A huge reason “No Way Home” made history at the box office was because it united Tom Holland with fellow Spider-Man actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield on the big screen for the first time. All three actors have expressed interest in playing Spider-Man together again, which would no doubt pump up the box office for Marvel.
As Maguire says in the book “Spider-Man No Way Home: The Official Movie Special” (now available for purchase), “If these guys called me and said, ‘Would you show up tonight to hang out and goof around?’ or ‘Would you show up to do this movie or read a scene or do a Spider-Man thing?’ it would be a ‘yes!’ Because why wouldn’t I want to do that?”
Holland’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Spider-Man: Far From Home” are now available to stream on Disney+.
