Tom Holland Has Bad News For Spider-Man Fans Waiting for the Black Suit, & Venom

Tom Holland is currently doing the rounds celebrating Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but he has bad news for Venom fans. Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal recently talked about their hope of bringing Venom into the MCU, and many dream of this leading to the full-on “symbiote Spider-Man” plot. In the comics, the original Secret Wars event led Peter Parker to don an alien costume, only to discover this was something far more dangerous.

Tom Holland, however, isn’t sure how this can happen in the MCU. Speaking on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, he said he feels it wouldn’t be easy to make it work. “They did it so well in the game and I don’t know how you make a suit that’s similar without having a CG component,” he said.

Has the MCU Finally Moved on From CGI Costumes?

At first glance, this seems like an odd criticism. The MCU is notorious for its CGI costumes, after all (as we’ve seen with Holland’s previous Spider-Man films). But popular culture appears to be changing right now, with a push for authenticity instead of CGI. Personally, I think it’s partly a reaction to the development of AI; there’s a desperate desire for practical effects, location filming, and actual costumes. Spider-Man: Brand New Day features an actual physical costume, without much CGI added on top, and it’s so much stronger as a result. Set photos and videos from filming in Glasgow became easy promotion.

Given this context, Holland’s point is an important one. He’s right that an effective symbiote Spider-Man costume would likely involve an awful lot of CGI, and modern audiences are unlikely to take well to that. It’s worth noting that Holland himself has not indicated he’d prefer to operate without CGI altogether; rather, he’s defended Marvel for it because of the complexity of the scenes and the number of elements in play. That said, he’s consistently praised Christopher Nolan’s practical approach on The Odyssey, while expressing delight at the reduction of CGI in Brand New Day. In the past, Holland may have been fine with CGI on top of his costume; those days are gone.

All this means, sadly, that we’re unlikely to get the symbiote Spider-Man costume in the MCU (or the traditional antagonism between Spider-Man and the Venom symbiote). Holland simply feels it wouldn’t work, and he tends to take strong ownership of Spider-Man nowadays. We know there was one version of Brand New Day that he hated, heavily influenced by feedback from “all of the random people that saw the film,” and Holland himself seems to have fought against it. A decade into the role, Holland is an experienced and influential actor with the ability to say “no” to Marvel.

Naturally, some viewers may disagree with Holland’s view here. And yet, in the case of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Holland’s instincts have undoubtedly proved correct. The film has released to rave reviews online, promises to perform incredibly well in the box office, and has a thematic and narrative integrity unlike most MCU movies. Holland’s judgment is likely to be even more respected after this success story.

Do you disagree with Tom Holland on Venom and the symbiote Spider-Man? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!