Tom Holland says Sony had a "really wonderful idea" for Spider-Man outside of the MCU

(Image credit: Disney/Marvel Studios)

Still recovering from the shock of Spider-Man nearly leaving the MCU? Us too. And while we certainly don’t want to open up old wounds, Tom Holland has been talking about the whole debacle, revealing how Sony planned to keep the webslinger’s story going without his Avenging friends.

In a recent interview with MTV, Holland revealed that – should a deal not have been broached between Sony and Marvel Studios – they “had a really, really wonderful idea of how we could sort of transition into a Spider-Man without the MCU.” He added that “the future of Spider-Man was really, really bright with Sony.” 

To catch you up: Sony holds the cinematic rights to Peter Parker and, last year, announced plans to pull the fan favourite out of the MCU – cue millions of fans in a frenzy on Twitter. Luckily, our friendly neighbourhood superhero ended up staying in the Marvel universe, partly thanks to a teary drunken phone call from Holland. 

After helping bring Peter Parker home to his Avengers family, Holland felt pretty good about himself – and rightly so. “It was a pretty cool experience,” he said, adding that he has “the best bragging rights ever: I saved Spider-Man.” Thank you for your service, Tom Holland.

(Image credit: Sony Pictures)

Reports at the time suggested Spider-Man would have joined Venom in an alternative cinematic universe – one that could have also included the upcoming Morbius. Already, we’ve seen that Morbius will include Michael Keaton’s character from Spider-Man: Homecoming – thought Holland keeps his lips tightly sealed on whether he could appear in the upcoming blood-sucking movie

Further news regarding Sony’s band of super spiders includes a confirmed sequel to the critically acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Holland’s Peter Parker is also set to return in a third film as part of the MCU, so be sure to check out everything we know about Marvel Phase 4 so far.

We can probably expect new Spider-Man-related movies long into the future, as the web of Disney and Sony studio negotiations appears to have straightened out. Sony boss Tom Rothman previously confirmed that the new deal is set to last, confessing: “I think it was a win for Sony. I think it was a win for Disney. I think it was a win for fans and moviegoers.”

Millicent Thomas

Millicent Thomas was once a freelance games and film journalist, writing for publications including GamesRadar, Total Film, Space.com, GamesIndustry.biz, Wireframe, Little White Lies, Culturess, SciFiNow, and more. She is now in international PR and marketing for Ubisoft.