Kevin Feige Discusses Tom Holland’s Version of Spider-Man
Art by BossLogic
It seems like Marvel and Sony have made the right choice in casting Tom Holland in the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. The more I learn about the kid, the more he seems to fit the character. Now it’s just a matter of seeing him in action as the Web-slinger.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has been making the press rounds recently for Ant-Man, and as you’ve seen, he’s been providing tons of details on his upcoming slate of films. While talking to the LA Times he was asked if he could tease Spider-Man’s role in Captain America: Civil War and he replied:
"No, everyone takes for granted that he's in it, but I don't want people to have false expectations. Well, you see the casting right away. He's younger by I think five or six or seven or eight years than either Tobey [Maguire] or Andrew [Garfield] when they were cast and that's very intentional. You look at the early comic books of Spider-Man and what was so great about what Stan Lee and Steve Ditko did was they said what if one of the most powerful heroes we have is a high school kid who also has to do homework and isn't a billionaire, or isn't a genius scientist, or isn't a trained assassin, or isn't another scientist who had an accident but is a kid?"
Feige went on to say that Spider-Man's relationship with the other superheroes of the MCU is also what makes this new interpretation different from everything else that had been done for the big screen.
"To go back to those Stan Lee, Steve Ditko origin tales of having him be younger and that dichotomy with dealing with the rest, and also in Brian Michael Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man. That the younger he was, the more truer he was to the original Spider-Man comic book stories and also the more unique and different he would be in comparison to the other Marvel heroes."
Thenm in a separate interview with Fandango, the producer elaborated on his and Sony's collaborative decision in casting Holland as Peter Parker, and he gushed about how amazing he is.
"It was a universal decision. We do a lot of tests and a lot of meetings so we can really try to find someone who becomes a unanimous choice. And in this case, it was Tom. He's just amazing! And he can do his own flips, which is just an added bonus. We didn’t cast him for that reason. We cast him because he’s an amazing actor and he’s going to have all of those flavors Peter Parker needs to have."
Feige has previously said that the standalone Spider-Man movie will feature a villain that has never graced the big-screen before, but when asked by io9 about the status of who or what villain that will be, he said:
"He’s got an amazing Rogue’s Gallery and bench and we’re honing in on who will get the call to be in that standalone movie.”
One day all of our answers about this stuff will be answered, but for now, all we can do is read these little bits of information that the studio throws out at us and speculate what it all means.