Washington: Film directors Anthony and Joe Russo recently revealed that it was not a smooth-sailing journey for actor Tom Holland to land the lead role in the ‘Spider-Man’ franchise.
As per Entertainment Weekly, the directors shared that they had to fight with Sony, which owns the film rights to Spider-Man, to cast Holland as Peter Parker (Spider-Man). While the directors and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige were very enthusiastic about Holland, the studio was more resistant to the choice.
“We talked with Feige at Marvel about Holland and he got excited and then we went to Sony, ” Joe said in an interview with British GQ, as per Entertainment Weekly.
Joe added, “And they were like, ‘Let’s think about it for a minute.’ We could tell we were meeting resistance from Sony. So we brought Holland back, brought him back, brought him back, and we were relentless in our pursuit of jamming him down the throat of the studio who owns this IP. It came down to a fight, yet Sony just kept dragging their feet.”
Joe further said that Sony was hesitant to give them control of ‘Spider-Man’ franchise, and “nervous about handing off something that could ultimately cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars down the line.”
“Sony’s reservations were: ‘Are we loaning it? Or are we giving it to them to help us reinvent it in a way that adds value for us?’” he continued.
The studio was also apparently skeptical about casting such a young actor as the web-slinging hero as Holland was just 19 when he nabbed the role.
“It was the first time Spider-Man had ever been cast as an actual teenager, right, which was very important to us; there was a distinct nervousness of casting a kid,” Anthony said.
As Joe recalled, it was Holland’s screen test with Robert Downey Jr., which is already something of a legend, that finally won him the role.
Holland told EW in 2015, “Robert took me aside and said, ‘Listen, I remember my screen test for Iron Man. I remember how terrified I was.
Just think of it as an audition. It’s nothing too scary. If you get it wrong, we’ll just start again. No pressure.’ But that kind of raised the pressure a little bit for me. But he was great and super supportive, and because he said he’d been there and had been in the same situation, it made me relax a little bit.”
Holland, who is currently gearing up for the third MCU Spider-Man film titled ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, also reunited with the Russo Brothers for their new drama ‘Cherry’, currently playing in theatres and coming to Apple TV+ on March 12.
Holland recently told EW, “I was worried about it: How are these guys going to go from making the biggest movie of all time to a small film like this? But I look back on it, and it’s been my favorite movie that I’ve ever worked on.”
‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ is set to pick up after Peter Parker’s (Holland) identity was exposed in ‘Far From Home’. With film series mainstays Zendaya reprising her role as Michelle and Marisa Tomei returning as Aunt May, Benedict Cumberbatch is set to appear as Doctor Strange in the movie.
Jamie Foxx and Alfred Molina will also be stepping back into their roles from the past Spider-Man franchises as Electro and Doctor Octopus. Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers have written the script for the forthcoming Marvel film.
Filmmaker Jon Watts has helmed the upcoming movie after directing ‘Spider-Man Homecoming’ (2017) and ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ (2019), which earned more than USD 1.1 billion globally, making it the highest-grossing ‘Spider-Man’ movie of all time.
