Tom Holland Actually Saved Spider-Man By Appealing to Sony and Disney

Everyone has been on the edge of their seats for weeks since it was announced that Spider-Man would no longer be part of the MCU. Marvel and Sony simply couldn't come to an agreement over the character, and it seemed that we, once again, we're in for a second-tier Spider-Man separate from the rest of the superheroes.

No one knew if Tom Holland would still play Spider-Man, either! We didn't know what to do, so we channeled all our confusion and heartbreak into making funny memes about it, and we waited for more news. Finally, at the end of September, the powers that be announced that Sony and Disney had reached a deal and that Spider-Man was back in the MCU. Now, we're learning that one person who helped made that happen was Spider-Man himself, Your Friendly Neighborhood Tom Holland.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, by August 20, Sony and Disney had reached a breaking point, and chances of reaching a deal over Spider-Man were "100 percent dead." Those are bad odds. 

And yet here we are, a little over a month later, and everything seems hunky-dory again. According to THR, this is all because of Tom Holland. "Sources say the star, 23, made multiple appeals to Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger and Sony film chairman Tom Rothman to reach a resolution."

They struck a deal, which was announced on September 27, and that deal is for a third Marvel-produced Spider-Man movie for Sony, and for Spider-Man to appear in "at least one additional Disney-Marvel film."

As always, Marvel exec Kevin Feige will be in charge creatively. There are more boring details about how much Disney will earn from the project and stuff like that, but the point is, there will be a third Spider-Man movie, which will open on July 16, 2021. And we're getting that because Tom made some good points to cranky old millionaires who didn't want to share.

That is power. Tom was involved in projects with both Disney and Sony when the split was announced (Disney's Onward and Sony's Uncharted, which honestly sound like they could be the same thing, I have no idea what they are), which helped him "leverage his clout" with the studios. 

He reached out to Tom Rothman at Sony to plead with him to restart conversations with Disney, and he also got in with Bob Iger, the biggest guy at Disney, to ask him to sit back down and start negotiations with Sony again. 

Unsurprisingly, the split happened over money. Disney wanted a 50-50 co-financing deal. Sony wasn't having it. Disney offered a more modest deal. Sony wouldn't budge. It seemed like they were at a stalemate, so the whole thing was dropped. 

But then tiny little Tom Holland came knocking at their doors, armed with viral hashtags and all the fan support, and both parties softened a bit. "In the end," THR reports, "the new deal had something for everyone. Sidney won a considerable stake in a new movie, up from a nominal producing fee that sources say amounted to less than 5 percent of the gross for each of the first two Spider-Man films." And Sony, well, Sony's back on our good side, for now.

When the deal was reached, Kevin Feige had this to say about it: "I am thrilled that Spidey's journey in the MCU will continue, and I and all of us at Marvel Studios are very excited that we get to keep working on it. Spider-Man is a powerful icon and hero whose story crosses all ages and audiences around the globe."

You know who's a powerful icon and hero? Tom Holland, that's who. Finally, after all these years and all these Spider-Mans, he will get a third movie that's probably actually at least kind of good. Phew.