Tom Holland has revealed that there was a plan to integrate his Spider-Man into Sony’s critically panned universe of Marvel villain spin-off movies.
In a new interview with Josh Horowitz, Tom Holland opened up about whether or not Spider-Man was actually planned to appear in Sony’s misguided attempts at its own Marvel universe. Holland confirmed that there was a desire from Sony CEO Tom Rothman to merge Sony’s universe with Holland’s place in the MCU, but it never came to be.
“[Tom] Rothman is a really smart guy. I think he was building this universe, and they had this plan to merge the universes, and I think they just never found the right time to do so,” said Holland. “I think it was in the cards and there were never any battles of, ‘We want you to be in this movie,’ and I don’t want to be in this movie. That never happened. […] It was like, one day this will happen.
“Like lots of things in the creative world, it just never came to fruition. We were feeling great confidence in my franchise with [Jon] Watts, the Marvel guys, and the MCU, that Tom and the guys at Sony wanted us to continue on our path. There was never any times where I was being forced into a movie I didn’t want to be in.”
Horowitz then noted that fans were interested in seeing him interact with Venom, to which Holland said anything could happen in the future. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige and longtime Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal echoed that same comment, noting that there is always hope that Venom and Spider-Man could eventually collide.
Holland’s comments are not without direct evidence for these plans either. Following the release of Madame Web in 2023, concept art for the film surfaced and showed Holland’s Spider-Man fighting the film’s antagonist, Ezekiel Sims, in the sky. Nothing remotely close to this actually happens in the film, so it’s unclear how this would’ve played out. Additionally, Michael Keaton’s Vulture somehow got transported between universes and showed up in the post-credits scene of Morbius, which made no sense.
As for now, it seems like Sony’s Marvel spin-offs are done with the exception of an animated Venom film. Spider-Man, however, continues to thrive as he stars in a new film releasing this weekend. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is tracking to have the biggest opening weekend of 2026 and is largely receiving rave reviews from fans. We gave it a 7/10 in our review, which you can read here.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN’s news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
