Tom Holland Just Confirmed Sony Actually Wanted to Merge Its Spider-Man Universe with the MCU
For years, fans have debated whether Sony’s separate universe of Spider-Man villains, from Venom to Morbius, was ever meant to formally connect with Tom Holland’s version of the character living inside the MCU. The two franchises have shared occasional winks and nods, most notably through that dangling piece of symbiote left behind at the end of ‘No Way Home,’ but an outright crossover has never materialized.
That long-running speculation just got a lot more interesting. As Holland reflects on nearly a decade playing Peter Parker during the press rollout for ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ he’s opened up about conversations that reportedly took place behind the scenes about bringing these two corners of the Spider-Man mythos together.
Speaking on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Holland confirmed that Sony genuinely explored the idea of merging its standalone Spider-Man villain universe with the MCU at some point during his run as the character. According to Holland, the concept was seriously discussed internally, even if it ultimately never came to fruition.
“I think that they just never found the right time to do so. I think it was on the cards… but there was never any time where I was being forced into a movie I didn’t want to be in,” Holland explained. That framing suggests the merger wasn’t abandoned due to creative disagreement, but simply never found the right moment to execute cleanly across two separate studio pipelines.
That timing issue tracks with how complicated Sony and Marvel’s arrangement around Spider-Man has been from the start. Since Disney and Sony’s original 2015 deal brought Holland’s Peter Parker into the MCU, the character’s film rights have remained legally split, with Sony maintaining ownership over Spider-Man and his surrounding cast of villains even as Marvel Studios produces the character’s solo outings.
That split created the unusual situation where Sony was simultaneously building out its own Spider-Man-adjacent universe, featuring Tom Hardy’s Venom and other villain-centered spinoffs, while Holland’s Peter Parker fought alongside the Avengers in an entirely separate continuity. The two projects have flirted with connection before, most notably through Michael Keaton’s Vulture appearing in a Morbius post-credits scene and that lingering trace of Venom symbiote left in the MCU proper.
Holland’s comments add real weight to those breadcrumbs, confirming that a formal merger was genuinely on the table at some point rather than simply existing as fan speculation built from vague marketing teases. It also reinforces something Holland has emphasized throughout this press cycle: that despite the complicated business realities behind the character, he’s never felt pressured into a project he didn’t personally believe in.
That sentiment lines up with recent comments from producers Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal, who also appeared on the same podcast and kept the door open on a potential future crossover between Holland’s Spider-Man and Hardy’s Venom, with Feige simply offering “Always have hope” when pressed on the subject.
With Sony’s separate Spider-Man universe having cooled significantly in recent years and Holland’s MCU version now more central to Marvel’s overall plans than ever, the timing question Holland raised may finally be resolving itself, just not in the way fans originally expected back when Venom and Morbius were still getting their own franchises. Whether that eventually means a real on-screen meeting remains to be seen.
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