Tom Holland is coming back for another Spider-Man movie, but we don’t know who else will be joining him.
Spider-Man 4 finally seems to be moving forward at Marvel Studios and Sony, as news broke on Monday that Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton had signed on to helm the new installment in the film series. With Tom Holland reprising his role as the titular hero and production reportedly set to begin early next year, Spider-Man 4 finally feels like it’s on the horizon. The question now is what type of Spider-Man movie this will be, and what other Marvel characters might be involved.
Since Spider-Man has been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, each of his solo films has featured another major character from the franchise. There’s no reason to believe Spider-Man 4 won’t continue that trend. Right now, with Cretton in the director’s chair, Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi seems like an easy choice. After all, the two characters have some history from the pages of Marvel Comics.
Regardless of what MCU character might be involved, however, this new Spider-Man movie has the opportunity to make its biggest supporting character a previous Spider-Man star. Spider-Man 4 will likely hit theaters around the same time as the two-part Avengers saga the Russo Brothers are directing, the second part of which is Avengers: Secret Wars. With the universes colliding, why wouldn’t Peter Parker reach out to his counterparts across the multiverse for a little help?
Look, the last thing Spider-Man needs is another massive event movie (I wrote about that at length after the Cretton news broke), but that destination feels almost inevitable. If that’s the case, it doesn’t seem all that far-fetched that a character like Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker could show up in Spider-Man 4.
While Maguire’s version of the character feels like he got to tell a full story, Garfield’s Peter still has a lot to say and do. He’s got issues to work out and he could do so alongside Holland’s character, especially if he’s not going to get a third solo film. There’s also his recent quote about Spider-Man’s future.
Just hours before the news of Cretton’s hiring, Garfield appeared at the Toronto Film Festival and said, “I think it’s kind of endless, what can be done with that character. Not that we should; not that we will, but I think you can always find another story to tell.”
Again, Spider-Man 4 should be a contained, street-level story that focuses on the friendly neighborhood Peter Parker is responsible for. That’s the film Marvel promised, after all. But if that doesn’t happen, the stars could be aligning for another Peter or two being thrown into the mix.
