After spending a few weeks on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey set, Spider-Man actor Tom Holland, who plays Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, came back a changed man. In an interview with GQ, he described the experience as an eye-opener. “I think coming from the Marvel space, and I think this will upset Marvel a little bit, his level of preparation is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Holland said of Nolan. The quote is now floating around social media and being used as a critique of how Marvel makes movies.
Holland went on to praise The Odyssey, calling it”the best script I’ve ever read.” And it seems his experience on the film has gone on to shape his work on Spider-Man: Brand New Day – which is obviously a positive for fans.
On the negative side, however, everyone is questioning the filmmaking techniques of Marvel again, including Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld. Liefeld called Holland’s comments a damning indictment of how Marvel makes movies. “Holland invoked the lack of preparedness that he has encountered on previous Marvel productions. That’s what working with Christopher Nolan will do to you,” Liefeld wrote on his Substack. “Working with a director of Nolan’s caliber, an elite, master class level talent, inspired Holland to pass the important lessons from one production to the next, a point he stressed to his upcoming Marvel collaborators as they prepared to shoot Spider Man: Brand New Day.“
Tom Holland Is Not an Outsider Criticising Marvel. He Is Marvel’s Spider-Man
While there’s been plenty of Marvel critics over the years, there haven’t been many on the inside – especially not from someone like Holland, who has had seven appearances in the MCU so far. After his films raked in billions at the box office, he is now telling everyone that watching Nolan prepare for a shoot was a different category of experience entirely. That probably won’t go down well with Marvel or Disney. It’s a punch in the gut.
Holland also revealed that he had an “uncomfortable conversation” with Sony Pictures boss Tom Rothman about delaying Spider-Man: Brand New Day so he could film The Odyssey first, given that both productions originally had identical start dates. Sony agreed. One reason they were happy to move, according to Holland, is because Nolan has a reputation for finishing on time, meaning the studio wasn’t risking losing their star for two years. And, true to form, The Odyssey started on schedule and finished nine days early.
For context, Captain America: Brave New World went through reshoots a reported three times after poor test screenings, with the whole thing being significantly altered in terms of narrative and structure, pushing the film from a mid-2024 release to February 2025. Daredevil: Born Again famously got scrapped mid-production and rebuilt from scratch, after Marvel executives reviewed the footage and decided what they had wasn’t working. It happens a lot at Marvel.
Nine Days Early Versus Three Rounds of Reshoots Says Everything About the Difference
As it turns out, the delay turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to Brand New Day. Holland explained that the gap gave Sony and Marvel six months to develop the script with director Destin Daniel Cretton, who would not have been available at the original start date. “The Odyssey almost saved Spider-Man because we wouldn’t have had Destin,” Holland said. “And I truly believe that we’ve made the best version of any Spider-Man movie going.”
But the delay also gave Holland the space to be more involved with the film. For the first time, he was invited into the writers’ room, meeting with producers every two weeks to pitch ideas and shape the direction of the story. He also spent time on the internet to understand what fans actually wanted from a Spider-Man film – something fans have been pushing for all these years. They’ve been begging Marvel to simply hear them out.
Holland’s concept – which he called “Spider-Puberty,” which explores Peter Parker losing control of his powers – was immediately shot down by name. But, thankfully, the studio embraced the idea underneath it. Now it’s grown into one of the film’s central storylines.
This Is the First Spider-Man Movie Where Tom Holland Actually Helped Build the Story
Tom Holland revealed how Christopher Nolan’s influence helped shift things on the set of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, too. When he was handed pages for the script, he would read over them and do a take. If they didn’t work, they stopped the cameras, sent everyone home and reworked the scene until it felt right.
Holland described Nolan as a real collaborator who knows what he wants but still creates an environment where actors can pitch ideas and help build characters. That’s what Holland brought back with him and tried to recreate on Brand New Day.
Whether Spider-Man: Brand New Day lives up to Holland’s confidence when it releases on 31 July 2026 remains to be seen. What’s already clear is that making it felt different from anything that came before it, and the man responsible for that shift didn’t direct a single frame of it.
