It didn’t take long for Sony to tear up their plans for a shared superhero universe and throw them out of the window following the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Andrew Garfield’s second solo adventure hit theaters on May 2nd, 2014, with third and fourth installments already having release dates locked in.
Once the studio decided to strike an unprecedented character-sharing agreement with Marvel Studios, Garfield was out, and Tom Holland was in. The latest incumbent of the spandex was officially announced as the new Peter Parker in June 2015, making his first appearance in Captain America: Civil War just eleven months after that.
Not only was Holland the second Spidey to grace our screens in the space of less than two years, but he was the third actor to embody the role since 2002. In a new interview with Sirius XM, Garfield disagreed with host Andy Cohen, who offered his opinion that we’ve had far too many Spider-Man movies already.
“I’m afraid I can’t co-sign that one with you. It’s like Hamlet, like you can never get enough Hamlets or Macbeths. I will vouch for the character for a second in the sense that it’s the only superhero where he’s covered head to toe. You don’t see skin color, you don’t see sexual orientation, you don’t see any of those things. Everyone can project themselves into the suit, and I think that’s why he’s probably the most beloved superhero universally, throughout every culture, throughout every race. Yeah, I think so. I really do think so. And there’s also an ordinariness to Peter Parker that everyone can project themselves into as well.”
December’s No Way Home will mark the eleventh feature film outing for Spider-Man in 19 years, which is admittedly quite a lot when fans had waited four decades just to get the first one. However, Tom Holland isn’t going anywhere, and we’re all expecting him to fight side-by-side with Garfield and Tobey Maguire very shortly, so Cohen’s dissatisfaction at Spidey overload is only going to get worse.