Four Reasons Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man’ Just Might Be What Fans Are Looking For


Spider-Man isn’t the only superhero to have many facelifts over the years, but he is going to be the only one to have three different actors play him in only the course of a just a little more than a decade, with Tobey Maguire starring in the 2002 Sam Raimi reboot and Andrew Garfield starring in the most recent foray starting in 2012.

Now Tom Holland has been announced as the new Spider-Man with Jon Watts (indie director of Cop Car) directing.

We could ask why the world needs another one so soon, but it might be more interesting to take a look at what might make this reboot work.

Spider-Man Is A Fan Favourite, But The Character’s Last Three Movies Didn’t Hit With Them So They Will Eagerly Embrace A Spider-Man That Works

When Raimi and Maguire brought Spider-Man to film, the only other attempt at live action had been a television series in 1977 that lasted only 13 episodes. Raimi tapped into a love for the character and told interesting stories in the first two films, so they both did booming business. Then came the third. Spider-Man 3 was a disaster. Raimi readily admits and blames the failure on pressure to one up the previous movie.

“I think [raising the stakes] was the thinking going into [the third movie], and I think that’s what doomed us. I should’ve just stuck with the characters and the relationships and progressed them to the next step and not tried to top the bar. I think that was my mistake.”

Raimi thought the third installment was so bad that even though they had all the cast on board and were in development on the fourth, he walked away, causing Sony to cancel the movie. They were having trouble coming up with the right script and the release date was getting closer — Raimi didn’t think he could hold the film together creatively and get the film done on time.

Flash forward 10 years, and Sony’s set to go ahead with Andrew Garfield and director Marc Webb with a prequel of sorts that they would call The Amazing Spider-Man. But they would make a similar mistake by trying to over-complicate the movie by focusing on the mystery surrounding Peter’s parents’ murder and a darker tone (a la Christopher Nolan’s popular Dark Knight trilogy) while also trying to hit the young adults with a romance, getting in the origin story, and giving him a monster to fight. In trying to please everyone, they ended up making none of their audience truly happy.

These recent disappointments of the beloved character have primed audiences to gravitate to a story and an actor who can get it right.

There’s A Large Hole In The MCU Without Spider-Man

Marvel has its various levels of heroes. The god-like superheroes of The Avengers, who regularly save the world. It’s more street-level heroes, who don’t have superpowers per se but are strong and heroic enough to save their cities day in and day out, like Daredevil. And then there’s Spider-Man, who falls somewhere in between the two.

Spider-Man has super powers, but he’s just an awkward teenager without the maturity to save the world on his own, so he’s been known to mix with both The Avengers and the street level heroes, known as The Defenders.

He’s the most relatable character in the MCU — a poor, geeky loser who lacks confidence who is trying to fit into the world. He’s pretty much the exact opposite of Tony Stark’s rich, confident ladies man. In fact, the only thing they have in common is their intelligence.

Becoming Iron Man makes Tony a better man, but it doesn’t fundamentally change who he is. Whereas when Peter finds himself with unexpected special abilities, he makes the wrong choice and then tends to become a different person when he’s behind the mask. Becoming Spider-Man complicates Peter’s life in a way that seems more realistic to the everyman than any other superhero.

The layer that he would add to The Avengers would bring them down to earth a little, something that might be most welcome at Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Actual High School Aged Peter Parker With No Origin Story Is Just Fresh Enough To Work

They’ve decided to put Peter back in high school, which sets up a nice contrast between his teenage self and the adult Avengers and Defenders.

There’s a lot of fodder in the comics for Parker’s high school years. It’s a good place to start the new reboot. And it will also give them plenty of room to move forward with the character.

And because they’ve decided to introduce him in Captain America: Civil War, instead of his own standalone movie, the pressure on the character, as well as Tom Holland, who will be playing him, is less. It also means Holland can establish his character in the middle of his story (after he’s already been bitten by the radioactive spider), which would be much more engaging than having to sit through another origin story or Uncle Ben death.

It also means he can establish his character in contrast to The Avengers, which can only be a good thing going forward.

Tom Holland Could Be Absolutely Perfect

Yes, Tom Holland is another Brit, and I know that immediately crosses him off some people’s lists of who should play Peter Parker, but there are several reasons he could be the perfect actor for the role.

He really is a teenager. Granted, not for much longer — he turned 19 at the beginning of June. But that’s a lot better than Maguire and Garfield, who were both 26 when they put on the spandex.

Though he hasn’t been in a lot of movies yet, he’s shown his chops in the ones he has been in. He’s played opposite some pretty big names — Ewan Macgregor, Naomi Watts and Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth. In fact, the range he showed in The Impossible (the true story disaster movie about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Thailand) — going from a petulant teen to a terrified child to taking adult responsibility — was quite stunning.

It also couldn’t hurt that his time playing Billy Elliot on the stage left him with some strong acrobatic abilities.

Tom Holland's Acrobatics

It could go either way, but I’m interested to see where a partnership between Marvel and Sony will take our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

[Image courtesy Marvel/Sony via Movieweb]

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