Drumroll, please. Marvel has cast its new Peter Parker, and he's ... wait for it ... Tom Holland! Don't know who that is? That's OK, not many people do. But his admittedly short resume includes the Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor-starring tsunami movie The Impossible and as a voice that Tom Hardy talked to from his car in Locke.
Spider-Man will be directed by Jon Watts, who previously helmed the indie film Cop Car and the horror flick Clown. The movie, hitting theaters in July 2017, is a co-production of Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures, which has owned the rights to Spidey since 1999. (Before his standalone film, Spidey will make his debut in next year's Captain America: Civil War.)
"Sony, Marvel, [Marvel Studios chief] Kevin [Feige] and I all knew that for Peter Parker, we had to find a vibrant, talented young actor capable of embodying one of the most well-known characters in the world," producer Amy Pascal said in a statement. "With Tom, we've found the perfect actor to bring Spider-Man's story into the Marvel Cinematic Universe."
Neither of these announcements is particularly surprising. Which is kind of the problem.
When Marvel and Sony announced Spider-Man's inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe earlier this year, fans got excited that we could see a fresh take on the character, rather than just another fresh-faced white dude. (No offense to fresh-faced white dudes.) In particular, the studio had a chance to shift gears and make the new cinematic Spider-Man not Peter Parker, but Miles Morales---the half-black, half-Latino teenager who wears the Spidey suit in the Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man. The prospect of that was virtually nil (though Morales is taking over as the web-slinger in the comics), but there was still a shot that Peter Parker could be re-imagined.
As for Watts, he's the latest in a series of young and relatively unknown directors to take on a Marvel property. Sure, Joss Whedon and Kenneth Branagh are big deals, but folks like Thor: The Dark World’s Alan Taylor or Joe and Anthony Russo, who will likely direct Holland in his Parker introduction in Captain America: Civil War, were mostly TV directors before joining Marvel. Those directors have all done good work in the MCU, and there's no reason to believe Watts won't as well, but if you were expecting this new Spider-Man flick to be directed by a big-name director (or a woman, or a non-white person), that's not going to happen this time around. (Of course, this news is coming as rumors are floating that Selma director Ava DuVernay is in talks to direct Black Panther, but those reports are as yet unconfirmed.)
The studios, however, are stoked. Marvel Studios honcho Feige even noted the team found Watt's "take and work inspiring."
"I've worked with a number of up-and-coming directors who have gone on to be superstars and believe that Jon is just such an outstanding talent," Sony Pictures Motion Pictures Group chairman Tom Rothman said. "The Marvel process is very thorough, and that’s why their results are so outstanding. I’m confident Spider-Man will be no exception. For Spidey himself, we saw many terrific young actors, but Tom’s screen tests were special."
Thus far, Marvel hasn't stumbled when it comes to the movies they make or the people they choose to make them. So while today's announcement might not be all that surprising, we're still looking forward to Spidey coming back to the Marvel movie universe to play with the Avengers et al. Swing on, web-slinger.
