Tom Holland initially admitted his reluctance to make a fourth “Spider-Man” film, after “Spider-Man: Now Way Home” feeling like a send off, but it sounds like they’ve found a way for him to feel proud of the work they’ve done with “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” (after the star recently hyped the sequel as the “best” movie they’ve done so far) as he discussed the latest installment with the popular celeb podcast, “Good Hang with Amy Poehler.” As everything clicked when director Destin Daniel Cretton was brought on to direct, taking over the reins from Jon Watts (who helmed the first three films).
“The third movie was so successful, sharing the screen with Toby[Maguire] and Andrew [Garfield], and it felt like the perfect send-off for all of us. So when I walked on set for the first time, there was a feeling of ’Is this the right thing for us to be doing right now?'” the actor admitted. “Like ‘Should we be making this movie?’ And then when Destin came into the fold, the director, it all of a sudden felt like, ‘Oh, this is exactly what we’ve been missing.'”
READ MORE: June Movie Preview: ‘Toy Story 5,’ ‘Supergirl,’ Spielberg’s‘ Disclosure Day,’ and More
As described by Holland, the new MCU film arriving at the end of July is more mature and different from its predecessors, “And I am so excited for this next chapter of the franchise because it feels different. It feels new and unique. It feels more mature,” Holland said. And I love John Watts, the guy who directed the first three [films]. And I think tonally, he did such a good job of making these films feel like the experience of a teenager.”
Holland went on to suggest that one of the movie’s themes was about the inability to have a work/life balance, diving into superhero work rather than facing all he has lost, and getting back out there to meet people IRL. “I think my proudest thing about this new movie is the message,” he explained. “It’s a superhero movie at the end of the day. Tom Rothman, the studio head, kind of describes it as a ‘superhuman movie’ because I think the message is so important for young people in this digital age. It’s so easy to sit at home in the evening and just scroll through your phone and turn your mind to mush and forget about how important socializing is…And what I love about this film is that the whole premise of the movie is that he’s neglecting who he is,” he continued. [Peter Parker] is kind of trying his best to suppress his trauma and just focus on being a hero while failing to realize that the person he is makes him the hero that we love. So it’s a really nice little balancing act.”
Poehler, the host of the podcast and fellow actor, who has clearly seen the film, also praised it for its depths and what it was trying to achieve on a human level. “Yeah, well, I love what you guys are getting into [with the film],” Poehler said about the film’s themes. “Which is this idea of— if I had to relearn why I love people…the thing of ‘If I had to do [life] all over again, would I choose the people in my life?’ Like it’s a deep, cool metaphor for what it’s like to get older, to grow up, to look back on your life. And, also, what is memory? Like what, what are you supposed to remember? What are we supposed to let go of?”
In a separate anecdote, it’s starting to sound like Holland is taking a more active creative role on “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” than we’ve seen in the past. When a scene wasn’t working, as both Zendaya and he were able to approach Cretton, telling him it was working only for the cast/crew sent home, and the scene was fixed with some rewrites (those rewrites being handled by Cretton and “Challengers” screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes).
“We shot my coverage. Now we’re doing her coverage, and I would never ever dream of saying this to an actress that I wasn’t with. So I said, ‘Do you think that this scene is working?’ And she was like, ‘No. I don’t think the scene is working at all. I went to the producers and asked, ‘Do you think the scene is working?’ They said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, me and [Zendaya] are really not feeling it.’ I went to the director [Cretton] and said, ‘I know we’ve been shooting for hours, and I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think that this scene is working. What we’re supposed to feel, we’re not feeling it in the moment.’ [Cretton] is so calm. Nothing can throw him off…He said to the crew, ‘Everyone can go home, and we’re gonna sit down and rewrite this scene.’ We came in the next day and reshot the scene, and I’m so glad that we did because it sings in the movie. It was just so funny, I was thinking about, like, if this wasn’t Zendaya that I was sitting across from… imagine on someone else’s coverage being like, ‘Do you think this is working?'”
Feel free to watch/listen to that full exchange between Holland and Poehler below, as “Brand New Day” is swinging into theaters on July 31.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
