Image via Marvel Studios By Victoria Luxford Published Aug 4, 2026, 11:26 PM EDT Victoria has written about film for a variety of outlets across the world, including The Guardian , NME , BBC , The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone , Empire Magazine , Metro , and many more. She was previously Film Editor for London newspaper City AM , as well as Global Film & TV Editor for American Express Essentials . Sign in to your Collider account Add Us Add on Google Preferred Source Google News Summary Generate a summary of this story Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Listen Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap One of the biggest films of the summer, Spider-Man: Brand New Day sees Peter Parker starting from scratch after having removed himself from the memories of everyone in the whole world, including those he loves. It's the fourth solo outing for Tom Holland in the title role, making him the longest-serving Spidey both in terms of years and appearances — and, with a $168 million opening day box office , it might end up becoming the most successful Spider-Man movie of all time.
While he first appeared in 2016's Captain America: Civil War , his finest moment in the suit is surely his initial solo outing in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming , which has spent weeks web-crawling up the Netflix charts, where it's currently the seventh most-popular streaming film. But Spider-Man: Homecomin g isn't just special because it's Tom Holland's debut — it is also one of only four Spider-Man movies currently available to watch without a Disney+ subscription. The Tobey Maguire trilogy of Spider-Man films — Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007) are all streaming on Hulu. Every other film, including Andrew Garfield 's Amazing Spider-Man films and the rest of Holland's contributions, are only available with a Disney + subscription.
Spider-Man in his homemade suit talking in Spider-Man: Homecoming Image via Sony Pictures Releasing In a movie that introduced the character for the third time in 15 years, director Jon Watts avoided franchise fatigue by throwing out much of what we thought we knew, and creating a version of Peter Parker that could boldly change the Marvel Cinematic Universe .
The first solo outing for Holland's Spider-Man forgoes the origin story of the character. We don't see the radioactive spider biting him, the death of Uncle Ben, or a lot of the early stages of his growth as Spider-Man. Instead, we find the 15-year-old dealing with regular high school issues like homework, crushes, and field trips, while balancing life as the hero we recognize, taking on a new threat in the form of Michael Keaton's Vulture under the watchful eye of mentor Tony Stark ( Robert Downey Jr ).
This direction sets him apart from the two men who had played the character before. Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker graduates around 40 minutes into his first film, while Andrew Garfield received his diploma in the first moments of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 . For both, school was where we found the character when he first developed powers, and tested them out (usually on school bully Flash Thompson). In Homecoming , we spend more time in class, thanks to some help from the past.
Where does Tom Holland's Spider-Man go from here?
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing This youth-centered approach was helped by Watts drawing inspiration…