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Credit: Marvel Studios/Sony PicturesSeven years ago, Tom Holland’s Peter Parker arrived in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and now everything we knew about Spider-Man in the MCU has changed.
Not only did Captain America: Civil War (2016) see the end of the Avengers team as fans knew it, but it also paved the way for Spider-Man to enter the MCU. Unlike previous iterations of the character, Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker entered the universe already imbued with his arachnid special abilities, and without the classic Uncle Ben storyline. This was a huge change from the origin stories fans of Marvel’s popular superhero had grown used to.
From Tobey Maguire in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007), to Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) from director Marc Webb, the Spider-Man story in live-action has always been about Peter Parker being bitten by the spider and coming into his powers. For the MCU, though, that was vastly different.
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Sure, the Spider-Man audiences first encountered in Civil War was not a confident one, but he was already Spider-Man. Holland’s trilogy then further displayed how much of a fledgling hero he was. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) found Peter Parker loitering around New York City, waiting for his next mission after being told by his future mentor Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), that he wasn’t ready to join the Avengers.
After the antics of Homecoming, Holland became a part of the huge ensemble cast of Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), before returning for his sophomore solo outing in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). And in 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) would release to a rapturous response. The Spider-Man movies were produced by Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal.
Holland returned as Spider-Man in the MCU, joined by his co-stars, Zendaya as MJ and Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds. Benedict Cumberbatch also starred as Dr. Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange. Notable for its inclusion of the Multiverse, No Way Home became an instant fan-favorite when it brought Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s versions of Spider-Man into the MCU.
But No Way Home would prove bittersweet for Holland’s New York native, as the ending left everyone in the world forgetting he existed — including his girlfriend and best friend. Following Doctor Strange’s spell, Holland was forced to make a life on his own, forgotten by all those who knew him. This ending marked a major shift for Spider-Man in the MCU as it finally placed him in a position that all the other Spider-Men had found themselves in early on in their superherohood: alone and keeping a secret.
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Now, Watts has confirmed that the six films Holland’s Spider-Man appeared in have acted as one of the longest origin stories ever told. In “Spider-Man: No Way Home — The Art of the Movie” (2023), Watts confirmed that No Way Home ends at the beginning. He acknowledges that they wanted to do something different with Spider-Man in the MCU, such as letting his best friend, Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), and eventually, the whole world find out his identity. But that meant that there would need to be some kind of different future for the character, too.
“…that was a fun thing to play with these new aspects. But in the end, you know, it was nice to be able to have everything coalesce into, at its essence, the simple story of Spider-Man,” Watts said (via The Direct). “We just really all took our time telling the first issue of “Spider-Man” — that origin story.”
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To tie into this, Ryan Meinerding, Marvel Studios Head of Visual Development, commented on that classic suit Holland is seen wearing in the final moments of the movie when he is web-slinging through the streets of New York. In doing the reverse, in making Holland’s Spidey go through the wringer and be exposed early in his superhero infancy, the MCU now has a much more confident, powerful, and tenured Spider-Man in the MCU — and one who is donning a classic and Marvel Comics-accurate costume.
As for the future of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, it was recently revealed that talks had begun about Spider-Man 4, but the Writers Guild of America strikes shut down those discussions. The movie will once again be a partnership between Marvel and Sony due to contractual reasons and will uniquely tie to both the MCU to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
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