British actor Tom Holland credits Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” as being a major reason why Sony & Marvel’s upcoming “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” film is being touted as his best Spider-Man film yet.
After years of working back-to-back projects, Holland took two years off from acting from late 2022 until early 2025, aside from a stage run on “Romeo & Juliet” for a few weeks in early 2024.
Then he shot “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” back-to-back with only a two-week gap between the films. In fact, he confirms to GQ today that his participation in Nolan’s epic saved “Spider-Man” production as it allowed director Destin Daniel Cretton’s involvement and time to work on the script:
“The Odyssey almost saved Spider-Man because we wouldn’t have had Destin. 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 delay in starting “Spider-Man” wasn’t the only impact that “The Odyssey” had on the superhero film. It turns out it also impacted how the film was made.
Nolan is famous for preparing and planning out his films well ahead of time, resulting in his movie coming in on time and on budget – often less on both accounts. Marvel superhero films, though, are much more slapdash – frequently overhauling scenes on the day and requiring extensive reshoots. Holland says:
“I think coming from the Marvel space, and I think this will upset Marvel a little bit – his [Nolan’s] level of preparation is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. There’s not a single question you can ask him that he can’t answer immediately. He’s also quite simple in the way that he works.
Holland says he pushed for the production to adopt a more Nolan-style approach, and the studio listened:
“I was really able to lay down the law 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. 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.’ ”
In the same interview, Holland confirms that he’s next doing a small film he can’t talk about later this year. Then, he will jump into the long-gestating Fred Astaire biopic, which “Paddington 2” filmmaker Paul King will shoot in January and which already has dance rehearsals underway.
“The Odyssey” opens on July 17th, with “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” hitting July 31st. Check out a featurette for the former and a poster for the latter, both of which have just been released.
New poster for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. pic.twitter.com/5Mwun8zHPo
— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) June 2, 2026
