Tom Holland Only Wants to Do Spider-Man 4 If It's 'Worth the While'

Tom Holland promoting his new show, The Crowded Room.

Photo: Michael Loccisano (Getty Images)

When you make the third highest-grossing film of all time, the first thing people will ask about is a sequel. That’s exactly what happened when 2021's Spider-Man No Way Home had its incredibly successful run. For the film’s star though, Tom Holland, a sequel isn’t a sure thing. To him, there’s more to it than money. There’s legacy and reputation—and in a new interview, he discussed all that, while also teasing what may be coming.

“All I can say is that we have been actively engaging in conversations about what it could potentially look like for a fourth rendition of my character,” Holland said at an event attended by Collider. “Whether or not we can find a way to do justice to the character is another thing. I feel very protective over Spider-Man. I feel very, very lucky that we were able to work on a franchise that got better with each movie, that got more successful with each movie, which I think is really rare, and I want to protect his legacy. So, I won’t make another one for the sake of making another one. It will have to be worth the while of the character.”

Reading between the lines of that statement a bit, it’s not radically different from what we’ve been hearing for—literally—years. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said he and Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal were developing a fourth film even as the third one was in theaters. Then, earlier this summer, Holland himself almost contradicted the above statement saying the group had found an angle that satisfied them all.

So what changed? Probably not much. The actor and writer’s strikes certainly put a pin in anything that was happening. Plus, Marvel has many, many big concerns of its own, most immediately the money being spent on films actually in stages of production (like Deadpool 3 and Captain America: New World Order).

Holland’s comments do make it seem like the sequel couldn’t happen though, which would be a surprise. Especially because one would assume screenwriter Michael Waldron, who is now working on both upcoming Avengers sequels, would need to know if, or which, Spider-Man versions he could use.

So we’ll see. But, more likely than not, we imagine Holland will swing back onto the big screen at some point.

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