Marvel Cinematic Universe fans owe Tom Holland a lot of thanks, as he was instrumental in getting Sony and Disney to come back to the negotiating table over the future of Spider-Man. And Holland even managed to do his part while drunk. At least partially. The actor, who has starred as the hero in the MCU since Captain America: Civil War and more recently starred in Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, recently shed some light on the situation during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
“I saved Spider-Man,” Holland said. “No I didn’t. We were at D23, which is the big Disney convention and the news had come out and I was obviously devastated. I was really upset, and my mom and all my friends were there taking Marvel pictures and I was like (frowns) not allowed to be in them and it was awful.”
“It was not the best day, so anyway I asked if I could get [Disney CEO] Bob [Iger’s] email cuz I just wanted to say thank you. I wanted to say this has been an amazing 5 years of my life. Thank you for changing my life in the best way and I hope that we can work together in the future, and I got his email and I sent him the email and then he responded very quickly saying ‘I’d love to jump on the phone with you at some point, when are you free?’”
For those who may need a small refresher, Sony still controls the movie rights to Spider-Man. They had cut a deal with the Disney-owned Marvel Studios several years back that allows for the character to appear in the MCU. However, the contract expired after Far From Home and, for a brief period, it looked like Spidey’s says in the MCU were over. But, luckily, the two sides came together and found a path forward. Holland was no small part of that.
“You don’t give Bob Iger like a schedule, you’re like ‘whenever Bob,’” Holland added before getting to the juicy bit. “So like 2 or 3 days go by and then my family and I went to the Pub Quiz in our local town. We’re doing a quiz and I’m like 3 pints in, right? I haven’t eaten much, and I get a phone call from an unknown number, and I have a feeling like ‘this is Bob Iger, but I’m drunk’. So anyway so my Dad’s like ‘just take the call you’ll be fine.’”
“So anyway I answer the call and I’m like ‘hey Bob’. I basically said ‘thank you for the opportunity’ and then he said ‘there is a world where we can make this work,’” Holland said. “And then there was a bunch of phone calls back and forth from Tom Rothman, he was really instrumental in the process and it was really interesting for me to have these two studio heads like ‘what do you think?’ I’m like ‘I don’t know I’m an actor.’”
There were rumors that Tom Holland cried on the phone with Iger. Kimmel pressed the actor about that very issue and Holland, at first, jokingly denied it. Then he got real.
“Yeah, no I was really emotional because I felt like it was all coming to an end. I don’t know. We had a really good plan with what we were going to do with Sony. The future of Spider-Man was still very bright, but it would’ve been a shame to take him out of the MCU, you know, that’s where he belongs and we’ve built such a strong character in that world and it would’ve been a shame to lose that, but I’m just really glad that we managed to work it out.”
I think it’s safe to say Tom Holland speaks for pretty much all Marvel fans out there on that one. Spider-Man 3, which doesn’t have a title yet, is set to hit theaters on July 16, 2021.
So what do you think? Are you happy that Spider-Man has a future in the MCU? What would you like to see happen in Spider-Man 3? Join in on the conversation over on Facebook or Twitter!
