Peter Parker who? After Tom Holland confirmed that the as-yet-untitled Spider-Man 4 will start shooting in summer 2025 ahead of its July 2026 release date, producer Amy Pascal has teased the first plot details from Sony and Marvel Studios’ followup to 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. The final installment of director Jon Watts’ trilogy ended with Peter Parker (Tom Holland) urging Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell that would make everyone — including his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) — forget not only Spider-Man’s secret identity, but Peter Parker’s existence.
It was the only way to save the Marvel Cinematic Universe from collapsing beneath the weight of the multiverse, and now no one in this universe remembers Peter Parker.
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”We have to deal with the fact that he decided he was going to give up being Peter Parker, and that he was going to focus on being Spider-Man because being Peter Parker was too hard,” Pascal said on Deadline‘s Behind the Lens. “So that’s what the movie is about.”
Spider-Man 24/7
Pascal’s comments suggest Spider-Man 4 is inspired in part by Spider-Man 24/7, a three-issue storyline from the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #592-594. Those issues took place during Dark Reign, when Spider-Man’s archnemesis Norman Osborn was installed as the director of H.A.M.M.E.R. (formerly S.H.I.E.L.D.) and established the Dark Avengers out of Avengers Tower (now owned by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* movie) as the Iron Patriot.
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After making his secret identity public in support of the Iron Man-backed Superhuman Registration Act during the events of Civil War, Spider-Man managed to put the genie back in the bottle with the help of Doctor Strange and Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four (which wouldn’t be revealed until later in Spider-Man: One Moment in Time, a four-part arc that inspired No Way Home).
“I need the world to forget I’m Spider-Man,” Peter told the Sorcerer Supreme, who made it so that no one — except for his once wife, Mary Jane Watson — remembered his secret identity, including his Avengers teammates and his close friends on the Fantastic Four.
Friend or Forgotten?
Unlike No Way Home, however, the inhabitants of the Marvel Universe didn’t forget Peter Parker — they just forgot the face under Spider-Man’s mask. While people remembered Spider-Man unmasking, their fuzzy memories could only recall the mask-less Spider-Man with his face magically obscured.
This caused friction with Peter’s friend Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, who realized he used to know Spider-Man’s true identity during what was supposed to be a short trip to the Macroverse dimension with the Fantastic Four.
Spider-Man explained that the mindwipe caused a “psychic blindspot” to preserve and protect his secret identity. Only by being unmasked or unmasking himself to someone would that person then have their memories come rushing back. While Spider-Man was hesitant to disclose his secret identity even to his most trusted superhero allies to limit the risk, he ultimately re-revealed his face to the Fantastic Four in Amazing Spider-Man #591.
Swing Shift
While they were in the Macroverse for just hours, two months had passed back on Earth. Spider-Man returned to find out that his chief hater, J. Jonah Jameson, had been elected mayor of New York City, and that his personal life had fallen apart during his absence. As the newly-elected Mayor Jameson launched an Anti-Spider Squad to hunt and hound the vigilante wall-crawler 24/7, Spider-Man decided to dedicate his every waking moment to superhero-ing instead of Peter Parker-ing, even staying in costume for 96 hours straight.
On duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week as a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, the webhead went on to fend off attacks from the Anti-Spider Squad and a new, acid-spewing Vulture. Eventually, Spider-Man realized that his 24/7 crusade was a response to Osborn — the Green Goblin — being appointed the most powerful man in America. Spider-Man then took responsibility for Osborn’s rise to power and made a vow to end his Dark Reign.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 4
Holland has teased that Spider-Man 4, which is to be helmed by Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Wonder Man director Destin Daniel Cretton, is “crazy” and “a little different to anything we’ve done before,” adding: “I think the fans are gonna really respond to it.”
“We have the best in the business working toward whatever the story might be. But until we’ve cracked it, we have a legacy to protect,” Holland said earlier this year. “The third movie was so special in so many ways that we need to make sure we do the right thing.”
He continued, “This is the first time in this process that I’ve been part of the creative so early. It’s just a process where I’m watching and learning. It’s just a really fun stage for me … We want to make sure we’re not overdoing the same things.”
Holland is first expected to appear in Avengers: Doomsday on May 1, 2026, before Spider-Man 4 swings into theaters on July 24, 2026.
