It’s only been a few months since we first learned that Marvel would be taking back some creative control over the Spider-Man franchise, but today the studio has revealed who will play the part: a young man named Tom Holland.
Don’t freak out if you haven’t heard of Holland before now — according to his IMDb page, his major roles are limited to that of Lucas in The Impossible and Gregory Cromwell in the PBS miniseries Wolf Hall.
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“Sony, Marvel, Kevin and I all knew that for Peter Parker, we had to find a vibrant, talented young actor capable of embodying one of the most well-known characters in the world,” said producer Amy Pascal. “With Tom, we’ve found the perfect actor to bring Spider-Man’s story into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
(Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Marvel also announced that director Jon Watts will be helming the project. Another relatively unknown talent, Watts received some attention earlier this year with his film Cop Car, which our sister site Variety called “a tight, easily marketable genre exercise that pushes its lean premise and all-around disrespect for authority to entertaining extremes.”
“As with James Gunn, Joss Whedon, and the Russo brothers, we love finding new and exciting voices to bring these characters to life,” commented Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. “We spent a lot of time with Jon and find his take and work inspiring.”
The next installment in the long-running Spider-Man film franchise will launch on July 28th, 2017.
