This will be the third time audiences will be seeing a new actor take on the role of the webslinger. This time 19-year-old British actor Tom Holland will play Peter Parker.
Holland is the youngest to ever take on the role, and like Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire before him, he is far from a household name at the time of his casting. However, as a younger star, he has even fewer credits to his name — so there's precious little for fans to go on if they're curious as to how good of a fit he'd be.
Fortunately, what little there is happens to be very, very good.
Holland's calling card is the 2012 film "The Impossible," where he plays Lucas, a real-life survivor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It's powerful stuff, and Holland is at the center of it all. But what's also interesting about Holland's performance in the movie is the way he talks about it.
Take a look at this interview with Celebs.com — Holland remains thoughtful and humble throughout, not only talking up his craft but also the contributions of the entire cast and crew. He's an extremely articulate guy, and this was in 2013.
That same year, Holland appeared as Isaac in the Saorise Ronan-led "How I Live Now ," based on the 2004 novel of the same name by Meg Rosoff. It's a smaller role for Holland than "The Impossible," but still weighty in its fictional World War III setting.
In December 2015, Holland appeared alongside "Thor" actor Chris Hemsworth in Warner Bros.' "In the Heart of the Sea," about the 1820 whaling ship Essex, which inspired "Moby Dick."
That's more or less it as far as Tom Holland's major roles go. He appears as Gregory Cromwell in BBC Two's recent miniseries adaptation of Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall," but as you can tell by the trailer, the story is more about his father, Thomas Cromwell.
Outside of that, Holland maintains a modest social media presence on Twitter and Instagram, where he seems fond of flipping, which makes sense for the future Spider-Man.
The strangest bit about Holland's casting is that he's the first actual teenager to take on the role — both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were in their mid-to-late-twenties when cast. While he won't be a teenager for much longer, it's great to see that Marvel and Sony have agreed on casting someone closer in age and appearance to real-life high-school teens. Spider-Man, really, is the first great teen superhero — that's what makes him special. In that sense, it's always been curious to see the films so eager to age Peter Parker up and get him out of high school.
Now, the Marvel Cinematic Universe finally has a teen superhero — which is something it desperately needs.
