Tom Holland's Spider-Man: Homecoming audition "frankly was a miracle," says Marvel Studios boss

With Spider-Man: Homecoming hitting cinemas next month (can you believe it?!) the hype surrounding the newest addition to the MCU isn't quieting down anytime soon. If you were anything like me, you were pretty skeptical about letting another movie iteration of the web-slinger into your heart, but Tom Holland's cheeky, 'actually a kid' Peter Parker has won you over. 

And apparently, Marvel Studio's Kevin Feige knew that's exactly what would happen when Holland auditioned. "We looked at hundreds of kids and he came in and frankly was a miracle," Feige reveals in the new issue of SFX magazine, on sale today. "He was charming, he was sweet, he was about as normal a kid as you could imagine.

"He gave a spectacular read in every audition we made him do, including up against Robert Downey Jr, and he could handle it on a level of acting craft. At the same time his natural excitement came through - the fact he was sitting across from Robert Downey Jr doing an audition. Of course, that's exactly how Peter Parker feels when he's sitting there talking to Tony Stark."

Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? And that's not all. In case you didn't already know this, Tom Holland could have been a professional stuntman...

"The added bonus, and if it wasn't true you would think we were making it up, is that the same young actor who could do all this also happens to be a trained dancer and gymnast, and could have been hired to be the best stuntman we've ever had playing Spider-Man. 

"And that's no exaggeration. He can do all of it. There's only so much you can allow him to do as a responsible producer [laughs], but for the very first time not only is he a wonderful, age-appropriate actor but every movement of Spider-Man in the movie is him, either in an actual costume doing a stunt or doing the motion capture that becomes the computer generated character."

That's got to add another level of performance to the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, right? I can't wait to see more of Tom Holland's Spidey. 

Read the full Spider-Man: Homecoming feature in the new issue of SFX magazine, on sale now. Or subscribe so you never miss an issue.

Lauren O'Callaghan

Lauren O'Callaghan is the former Entertainment Editor of GamesRadar+. You'd typically find Lauren writing features and reviews about the latest and greatest in pop culture and entertainment, and assisting the teams at Total Film and SFX to bring their excellent content onto GamesRadar+. Lauren is now the digital marketing manager at the National Trust.

Latest in Marvel Movies
Fantastic Four: 1234 #2 cover excerpt
Sue Storm and Namor are officially both in Avengers: Doomsday, and fans are wondering if Reed Richards has something to worry about
Chris Evans as Steve Rogers with the rest of the gang during the superhero movie, The Avengers.
The OG Fox X-Men are back, with Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and more joining the cast of Avengers: Doomsday alongside a whole new Avengers team to take on Robert Downey Jr's Doctor Doom
Robert Downey Jr. sitting in a chair at the end of a long line of chairs
Everything announced during Marvel's Avengers: Doomsday cast reveal live stream
The Fantastic Four: First Steps cast assemble
Fantastic Four star says the Marvel movie "will go down in history" for rejuvenating the MCU, "in the same way the Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther hit"
Wanda in Doctor Strange
Scarlet Witch star Elizabeth Olsen is one of the first Marvel actors to say she's not in the next pair of Avengers movies
Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania
Paul Rudd is still thinking about that one Thanos and Ant-Man fan theory: "I often wonder, though, could he really have stopped Thanos in that way?"
Latest in News
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Destiny 2 Lightfall
When Destiny 2 "weekly active users dropped lower and faster than we'd seen since 2018," Bungie assembled an A-Team to put out some fires: "We needed to do something"
Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo looking at a giant key which is also a clue
Netflix is rebooting Scooby-Doo as a live-action series from the producer of Supergirl and The Flash centered around a "supernatural murder" at a summer camp
Astro Bot
Astro Bot went through 23 pitch iterations before its director promised PlayStation "happy gameplay" and "overflowing charm," though it did once end with robot decapitation that made "some people really upset"
Tomb Raider
5 years after Avengers, 2 years after its last layoffs, and who knows how long before Perfect Dark and Tomb Raider return, Crystal Dynamics announces another round of layoffs
AI Limit
"AI is not as effective as it might appear": Dev of AI-focused Soulslike RPG says they didn't use any AI-generated content and it can't match "genuine creativity"