In the last four years, Tom Holland has gained worldwide fame thanks to his time as Spider-Man, who, because of a special partnership between Disney and Sony, has participated in the former studio’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now Holland is getting to leave his mark on a different corner of the Disney media empire via Pixar’s Onward, and the actor has expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the Mouse House for letting him take part in the movie. Take a look:
Thanks to Onward, Tom Holland fulfilled a goal he’d set for his career: being in a Pixar movie. As a result, Disney has made him, as he put it on Instagram, the “luckiest kid going” again, with the studio already having invited him into the MCU by making Spider-Man one of this franchise’s most important ‘newer’ players. Needless to say that Tom Holland also urged fans to check out Onward with their families.
Onward also marked Tom Holland’s third time working with Chris Pratt, as the two had previously appeared alongside each other as Spider-Man and Star-Lord in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Holland and Pratt star in Onward as Ian and Barley Lightfoot, two elf brothers who, after gaining a wizard staff capable of bringing their late father back for 24 hours, embark on a quest to fully reconstitute him after only his legs appear. Onward’s cast also includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Ali Wong and Lena Waithe.
It is worth noting though that Onward is not Tom Holland’s first time working on an animated movie. Just last December, he co-starred with Will Smith in Spies in Disguise. And while last month’s Dolittle was a live action affair, Holland did vocally contribute to it as the voice of Jip the lurcher. Chris Pratt also has some animated movie experience under his belt through voicing Emmet in the LEGO movies.
The way I see it, with Tom Holland having contributed to the MCU and Pixar, that just leaves two main areas of Disney for Tom Holland to show up in: a Star Wars movie and one of the studio’s live action remakes/re-imaginings. Something tells me that if Holland were to ever show up in the Star Wars franchise, it would be through a cameo rather than as one of the leading characters, but anything’s possible. And Disney certainly isn’t slowing down on putting live-action spins on its classic animated movies, so there could be room for Holland in one of those.
We’re a little over a week away from Onward’s release, but judging by the reviews, it looks like Pixar has delivered another solid entry to its cinematic ranks, sitting at 86% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s hard to say how Onward will perform commercially, but given Pixar’s usual luck with the worldwide box office, it likely won’t have any problems on the monetary front.
Regarding Tom Holland’s time as Spider-Man, while there was a brief period in the latter half of last year where it looked like the Web-Slinger would be pulled out of the MCU due to financial disagreements, Disney and Sony (with Holland’s help) worked out a new arrangement. This means not only is this iteration of Spider-Man getting another MCU-set movie, he’ll also pop up elsewhere in this continually-growing franchise.
Onward opens in theaters on March 6, and Tom Holland’s next Spider-Man movie follows on July 16, 2021. Be sure to look through our 2020 release schedule to figure out what other movies are coming out later this year.
