Tom Holland Officially Confirms Why He Never Appeared in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe!!

Tom Holland has been Spider-Man for a decade now, and despite spending that time bouncing around the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there was always another superhero world sitting tantalizingly close by. Sony spent years building out its own universe around characters connected to Spidey, beginning with Venom and eventually expanding to include Morbius, Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter and yet, Holland’s Peter Parker never properly crossed over into any of them.

That wasn’t because Holland was fighting to keep Spider-Man away. Appearing on Happy Sad Confused with Josh Horowitz, the actor revealed that Sony did have plans to eventually merge the two worlds, but the right opportunity simply never materialised. When Horowitz asked whether Holland ever had to “take stands” against appearing in Sony’s other Marvel movies, Holland explained:

“To be perfectly honest, Tom Rothman is a really smart guy. They were building this universe and they had these plans to merge the worlds at some point, and I think that they just never found the right time to do so. I think it was on the cards, and there were never any battles of ‘We want you to be in this movie’ and ‘I don’t want to be in this movie’. That never happened.”

Holland added that Sony ultimately had confidence in what he, director Jon Watts and Marvel Studios were already doing with Spider-Man, rather than forcing a crossover simply for the sake of making one happen.

“I think they thought one day this will happen and, like lots of things in the creative world, it just never came to fruition and I think we were feeling great confidence in my franchise, with Jon Watts and with the Marvel guys, and the MCU, and Tom and the Sony guys just wanted us to continue on our path. There were never any times where I was being forced into a movie I didn’t want to be in. That never happened.”

Could Tom Holland’s Spider-Man Still Meet Tom Hardy’s Venom?

The crossover fans arguably wanted most was between Holland’s Spider-Man and Tom Hardy’s Venom. The two characters came remarkably close after Venom: Let There Be Carnage transported Eddie Brock into the MCU, only for Spider-Man: No Way Home to send him home before the pair could meet. Horowitz raised that particular missed opportunity with Holland, describing Spider-Man meeting Hardy’s Venom as the dream for fans and Holland played as coy as a man who is notorious for giving away secrets can be.

“Who knows what the future holds for my Spider-Man? Anything can happen. Just wait and see.”

For now, Holland’s immediate Spider-Man future is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton rather than Watts and continues Peter Parker’s story after the world forgot his identity in No Way Home.

The movie stars Zendaya (Dune) as MJ, Sadie Sink (Stranger Things) as… well, wait and see, Jacob Batalon (Reginald the Vampire) as Ned Leeds, Jon Bernthal (The Punisher) as Frank Castle/Punisher, Tramell Tillman (Severance), Michael Mando (Better Call Saul) as Mac Gargan/Scorpion and Mark Ruffalo (Avengers: Endgame) as Bruce Banner/Hulk.