Remember when the news broke that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man would no longer be part of the MCU, three months back? It shook Marvel fans to our very cores. The idea of Spidey no longer swinging through the established universe just didn’t feel right. Thankfully, Disney and Sony ultimately decided to share custody of the friendly neighborhood web slinger again. And with the help of drunken Tom Holland no less.
Reports had surfaced that the 23-year-old Spider-Man actor had something to do with the new deal before. But, now Tom Holland has spilled the whole story. Apparently, it all started at this summer’s D23 convention. The actor was in attendance to promote his upcoming Pixar movie Onward on the same day tons of Marvel actors were on site for reveals about the MCU’s future.
When Tom Holland took the D23 stage, he emotionally told fans “I love you 3000” as he admits he was “devastated” over the recent news Spidey was out of the MCU. He longingly watched as his former Marvel co-stars took part in group pictures without him. It inspired him to ask for Disney CEO Bob Iger’s email, just to send him a “thank you” for the past five years he’s been Spider-Man for the studio.
Tom Holland recalls Bob Iger swiftly responding to him, asking the actor if they could talk on the phone soon. But, he wasn’t going to give the studio head a particular time and day and after a few days, Iger got back to him while he was a few beers in at a pub trivia night with his family. As Holland tells it:
I’m like three pints in. I 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. So my dad’s like ‘Just take the call, you’ll be fine!’
Anyone else heart skipping a beat right now? Well, at least we know it turns out okay. Holland took the call and here’s what happened:
I basically just said ‘Thank you for the opportunity’ and he said ‘There is a world where we can make this work.’ Then, there was a bunch of phone calls back and forth from Tom Rothman – he was really instrumental in the process. It was really interesting for me to have these two studio heads like ‘What do you think?’
Maybe all Bob Iger needed to hear was Tom Holland’s wistful voice to strike another deal with Sony again? The actor isn’t giving himself all the credit here, after their phone call, he mentions that Iger and Sony chairman Tom Rothman had a few back-and-forths before shaking hands on working together on Spider-Man again.
Curiously enough, the two studio chairmen turned to Tom Holland for his opinion on the matter, which he definitely wasn’t expecting as an actor. Thankfully, Tom Holland decided to reach out to Bob Iger after the door was previously “closed”. The young actor admitted to crying on the phone with the Disney head. In his words:
I was really emotional because I felt like it was all coming to an end. We had a really good plan with what we were going to do with Sony. The future of Spider-Man was still very bright, but it would have been a shame to take him out of the MCU. It’s where he belongs and we’ve built such a strong character in that world. It would have been a shame to lose that.
Tom Holland explained the situation during an interview on Jimmy Fallon Live. Check out the full interview below:
Such a great story! Can Tom Holland help strike a deal to get the Spider-Man movies on Disney+ next?
