Tom Holland Praises Sony's Original Plan For Spider-Man's MCU Exit (Even Though He Worked Behind-The-Scenes To Stop It)
As we all know by now, Spider-Man is sticking around in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But there was a hot second there where it looked like the deal between Sony and Marvel had fallen through, and Spidey was going to leave the MCU. Thankfully for fans, it all worked out in the end. But according to current Spider-Man Tom Holland, Spidey's MCU departure wouldn't have been such a bad thing. In fact, in Holland's words, Sony had a "really wonderful idea" on how Spider-Man would exit the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And what, pray tell, was this wonderful idea? Well...we don't know. Tom Holland didn't give the details while talking to MTV News. He did, however, praise Tom Rothman and Amy Pascal for coming up with something:
"The future of Spider-Man was still very bright with Sony and we had a really, really wonderful idea how we could sort of transition into a Spider-Man without the MCU and Tom Rothman and Amy Pascal were really confidant that they were gonna do justice and make a film of the calibre that Spider-Man requires."
It's worth noting that Holland wasn't always down with the idea of Spidey leaving the MCU. After the Sony/Marvel deal collapse broke and then was quickly resolved, Holland revealed he was so upset he wept during a phone call with Disney's Bob Iger, begging him to work a deal out.
"We were at D23 and the news came out and I was obviously devastated," Holland said. "It was awful. I asked if I could get Bob Iger's email because I just wanted to say, 'Thank you, this has been an amazing five 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.' I got his email and I sent him the email and he responded very quickly saying he'd want to jump on the phone and asked when I was free...So, two, three 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 three pints in, haven't eaten much, and I get a phone call from an unknown number and I have a feeling. I'm like, 'I think this is Bob Iger but I'm drunk.'"
Holland then wept on the phone with Iger, stating later: "I was really emotional because I felt like it was all coming to an end." Reports also revealed that Holland spoke with Tom Rothman and urged him to work things out with Disney at the time. As THR revealed:
Holland began flexing his diplomacy after the D23 wrapped Aug. 25. He leaned on Rothman to re-engage with Disney (the actor was able to leverage his clout because he also is set to star in Sony's Uncharted) and also surprisingly reached out to Iger, beseeching one of Hollywood's most powerful executives to return to the table.
Of course, it all worked out in the end, and Holland can now be magnanimous about the entire thing. Still, it would be interesting to find out just what the Sony crew had up their sleeves for Spidey's exit. Perhaps he would climb into a lobster tank with Tom Hardy's Venom.