This might tick some Spider-Man fans off. There has been debate in the passionate Spider-Man community that Tom Holland’s interpretation of Peter Parker in the MCU is to make him basically Tony Stark Jr. Instead of Uncle Ben being a mentor, and the reason for Peter needing to be Spider-Man, Marvel Studios made Holland’s hero beholden to Iron Man. But there was hope that with Spider-Man 3, and the death of Tony at the end of Avengers: Endgame, that Peter finally would swing out from Stark’s shadow.
Well, he might. Be he isn’t swinging away from his wardrobe.
That photo was shared to Tom Holland’s Instagram, of him sporting a stylish red-and-black jacket while in a home gym, assumedly near the set of Spider-Man 3 in Georgia. Holland hadn’t specified whose jacket he was “looking after” in the Instagram photo. Leave it to Robert Downey Jr. to respond on social media and say “Thank you.”
Tony’s influence CONTINUES to hang over Peter!
OK, it’s probably not as drastic as it sounds. No doubt, Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr. are very close in real life. The Marvel family of actors feels like exactly that… a family. And the last time that Tom Holland filmed a Spider-Man movie outside of Atlanta, it was Spider-Man: Homecoming -- of which Robert Downey Jr. was a co-star. For all we know, Downey left that coat in a costume trailer, someone told Tom that it was Robert’s, and he put it on as a gag.
Let’s just choose to believe that.
Because the flip side would be that the legacy of Tony Stark will continue to cast its long shadow over the development of the MCU Spider-Man, and really, that’s no longer necessary. I hear the complaints, and I do agree with the fact that Ben Parker has been marginalized in the MCU. I don’t love that. But I didn’t need Marvel to re-do Peter’s origin story one more time on screen. And when Spidey was introduced into the fold in Captain America: Civil War, Tony was a logical mentor for the brainy, insecure Parker. Some argue that Steve Rogers might have been better, but at this point, who’s to say.
At the moment, Tom Holland is hard at work filming a third Spider-Man movie that is a total mystery to us. We think that Jamie Foxx is down to play a villain in the movie, but we don’t know if he’s Electro from the Marc Webb movies, or someone different. We know that Benedict Cumberbatch will play Stephen Strange in them movie, but we don’t know if it’s a cameo, or a significant role. We only know a release date. For now, it’s December 17, 2021. Will Peter Parker rock that jacket in the movie? It’s be pretty fresh.
