There is a new live-action Spider-Man, and his name is Tom Holland.
No, not the director of Child’s Play. This is a much younger Tom Holland, who co-starred in films like The Impossible and Ron Howard’s upcoming In the Heart of the Sea. After a rigorous audition process, the 19-year-old actor beat out such actors as Asa Butterfield (Ender’s Game), Charlie Plummer (Boardwalk Empire) and Matthew Lintz (Pixels). Holland is expected to make his big screen debut as Spider-Man in next year’s Captain America: Civil War, followed by an as yet untitled solo film in 2017.
That film will be directed by Jon Watts, whose film Cop Car played at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Watts has also directed many videos for The Onion, proving his comedic chops. All told, it’s an interesting choice of both actor and director for Marvel’s new Spider-Man reboot. It seems as though we can finally put all these annoying, pervasive, mostly unnecessary casting rumors to bed.
Except we don’t have an Aunt May, we don’t have an Uncle Ben, we don’t have a J. Jonah Jameson, we don’t have a Mary Jane, we don’t have a Gwen Stacy, we don’t have a Harry Osborn, we don’t have a Norman Osborn, and we don’t have any other Spider-Man villains (on the off-chance the bad guy isn’t Green Goblin).
Well, that sucks. So back to the gossip pages we go, awaiting new and mostly inaccurate rumors about who is going to be what in Spider-Man, all of which will just be biding time until Marvel officially announces it and makes most of that speculation just a waste of online space, or at best an IMDb Trivia blurb.
So congratulations, Tom Holland. And hey, nice back flip.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
