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The Odyssey Completely Changed the Spider-Man: Brand New Day Plan (& You Can Thank Tom Holland)
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is one of the year’s most highly anticipated films, and that’s at least partly due to the star-heavy cast, including Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon, Lupita Nyong’o, and more. It turns out the ripple effects of The Odyssey were even felt at Marvel Studios, as the film completely changed the plans for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and it was all thanks to Tom Holland.
It turns out that Nolan’s The Odyssey changed the plans for Brand New Day significantly, and it was all due to Tom Holland’s casting. In an interview with GQ, Holland revealed that initially both films shared the same production date, so Holland called Head of Sony Pictures Tom Rothman to see what could be done. Sony would ultimately postpone Brand New Day’s production so Holland could do The Odyssey, but that wasn’t where the ripple effects stopped, as Holland would take some key lessons from Nolan and The Odyssey to Spider-Man’s world.
Tom Holland Took A Chance: and It Paid Off For Spider-Man and The Odyssey
Holland was clear about wanting to do the movie, but there was a major issue in that the film was shooting at the exact same time as Brand New Day. “So I said to Chris, like, ‘Look, I want to do this movie, but if I’m going to do it, I’m going to have to call Sony and have a very uncomfortable conversation,’ ” Holland said.
Holland would then call Rothman and Marvel to figure things out, and they would end up pushing the film’s production so he could do The Odyssey. While that was partly out of respect for Holland, Holland believes a big part of why they let him do it was Nolan’s reputation. “I think one of the reasons why Sony were happy to move is because Chris has that reputation of ‘This movie isn’t going to go five months over, and we aren’t actually going to lose Tom for two years,’ ” Holland said. “Any other director, it might have been a slightly different conversation.”
Tom Holland Took Key Lessons from Christopher Nolan to Spider-Man
Holland also revealed how working with Nolan changed his approach to Brand New Day and helped him “lay down the law” on some key points “and say, ‘We are not going to come to set and figure it out. We need to know why we are making this movie beyond the fact that it’s Spider-Man 4 and they make loads of money and we’re going to just have a big summer,” Holland said. “Why are we making this movie?’ And Destin was super instrumental in that, but it was just really great to constantly be calling up the studio and [producers] Amy [Pascal] and Rachel [O’Connor], who I love, and be like, ‘Well, Chris is doing it this way. This is how I think we should be doing it.’ ”
The push of the schedule also meant they could lock in Destin Daniel Cretton as the director. “The Odyssey almost saved Spider-Man because we wouldn’t have had Destin,” Holland said. “He wouldn’t have been ready to make the movie when we were ready to go. We wouldn’t have had the six-month period to develop the script with Destin to get it to a place where it is now. And I truly believe that we’ve made the best version of any Spider-Man movie going. So while it was a tough pill to swallow for Sony, I think in hindsight, they’re very grateful that it happened.”
The Odyssey hits theaters on July 17, 2026, while Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits theaters on July 31, 2026.
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