Tom Holland gave himself a deadline for how long he would still want to play Spider-Man after Spider-Man: No Way Home. While the third actor to play the wall-crawler in live-action, he's also the only one who will continue to portray the character beyond a third film. Spider-Man 4 is now in active development, effectively confirming Holland's future as the character. But, overall, fans may only have several more years before he retires the role.
Unlike his predecessors, Holland's Spider-Man debuted in an ensemble film instead of a solo outing, Marvel Studios decided to incorporate the current version of the hero into the MCU through Joe and Anthony Russo's 2016 Captain America: Civil War when he was recruited by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) for Team Iron Man. Peter then went on his first mission fighting Vulture (Michael Keaton) in Spider-Man: Homecoming and Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Spider-Man: Far From Home. In-between his standalone flicks, he joined the Avengers' battle against Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Holland's web-slinger was faced with his biggest personal mission thus far, fighting interdimensional villains. The film ended with the character essentially being stripped of his identity as he made the decision to save Earth from multiversal doom. Fortunately, the actor's story is already confirmed to continue with another MCU Spider-Man trilogy already in the works. Beyond that, however, Holland may no longer be playing the character as he told Esquire Middle East that he has decided on when he believes is the best time to hang up his superhero suit.
"What I was basically trying to say is that if I am 30 and still playing Spider-Man and I haven't passed on the baton to a Miles Morales or a Spider-Woman or something more diverse, then I will have done something wrong in the sense of duties that I have to the character."
For context, Holland is currently 25 years old. Considering the fact that he's set to star in other projects outside of being Spider-Man, chances are that Spider-Man 4 won't be out until at least two to three years. By then, the actor will be 27-28 years old, and if he sticks to his self-imposed timeline, it's possible that the next Spider-Man trilogy will be his final movies as the wall-crawler. That being said, this isn't a guarantee that he will walk away from the role by the time he turns 30. For what it's worth, a lot of actors playing superheroes now are older than that. Instead, what Marvel Studios and Sony can do is shift his version of Peter Parker to be a mentor-type to his predecessor/s.
Holland's answer is reminiscent of Robert Downey Jr.'s response when he was being asked when he would retire Iron Man a few years back. The difference is, at that point, Tony Stark was already playing the mentor role for Peter Parker. Holland's character, on the other hand, seems like his story is just starting after Spider-Man: No Way Home. As per director Jon Watts, his Spider-Man trilogy essentially functions as the character's origin story. So, this means that he still has a lot of missions to tackle moving forward.
Source: Esquire Middle East
