Tom Holland has spent a decade playing Peter Parker, and now, on the eve of his fourth solo Spider-Man film, he is thinking hard about what comes after — for the character, and for the actor who helped define him.
In a wide-ranging interview with Empire timed to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which opens July 31, Holland said he wants to stay involved in Marvel’s Spider-Man universe even as he acknowledges his own tenure will eventually end. “For whoever’s next, whether that is a Miles Morales or a Spider-Gwen or a Spider-Woman or something like that, I would love to be a part of setting up the next chapter,” he said.
The parallel to his own origins was explicit: Holland’s Marvel journey began with Robert Downey Jr. helping launch his version of Peter Parker into the MCU, and the actor said he would draw inspiration from that model. “If I could do what Downey did for me, then I would be so content swinging off into the sunset,” he told the magazine.
The comments arrive at a complicated moment for the Spider-Man succession question. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has said Sony has told Marvel to stay away from a live-action Miles Morales for now, with Sony finishing the animated Spider-Verse trilogy first — Beyond the Spider-Verse is currently set for June 25, 2027. Holland’s remarks suggest neither Miles nor Gwen Stacy will appear in Brand New Day, though he left the door open for surprises.
What is clear is that Holland himself has taken a more active role shaping this film than any previous entry. He told Empire this was “the first time in my tenure as Spider-Man that I was kind of welcomed into the writers’ room,” meeting with producers every two weeks to pitch ideas and discuss where the character should go. One of those pitches stuck. Holland proposed that Peter Parker’s powers begin evolving in strange and unpredictable ways — a concept he initially called “Spider-Puberty,” which the studio immediately rejected as a title but embraced as a story engine. “They liked the kernel of the idea, and it grew into what we have in the movie now,” he said.
Feige, for his part, has described Brand New Day as “the first Spider-Man film that we’ve made in the MCU that is focused on the classic elements of Spider-Man,” a pitch that positions the film as a deliberate correction — stripping away the Avengers scaffolding and returning Parker to street-level heroics. Holland is not expected to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, due in December 2026, which gives Brand New Day the feel of a closing chapter even as the studio frames it as a beginning.
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The cast includes Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal as the Punisher, Sadie Sink, and Mark Ruffalo returning as the Hulk. Director Destin Daniel Cretton, who previously helmed Shang-Chi, wrapped filming earlier this year.
