Stan Lee approves of Tom Holland as Spider-Man

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The new face of Spider-Man was announced just last week and Tom Holland already has one big supporter in his corner; Stan Lee, who created the hero with Steve Ditko back in 1962, spoke with Entertainment Tonight at the premiere of ANT-MAN where he was asked what he thought of Tom Holland stepping into the role he helped create.

He’s good to me! I can’t see anything wrong with him. I don’t know him intimately. In fact, I’ve never seen him [onscreen], but if [Marvel] picked him, I’m sure he’s good!

Despite not having seen Holland in anything, Lee's endorsement is likely a nice feather in Tom Holland's cap. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige spoke with The LA Times and referenced Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's original Spider-Man tales as an inspiration for Tom Holland's new younger Spidey.

The one thing that hasn't been able to be explored in the other five ["Spider-Man"] movies is his relationship to the broader Marvel Universe and that's something that was exciting to us. To go back to those Stan Lee, Steve Ditko origin tales of having him be younger and that dichotomy with dealing with the rest, and also in Brian Michael Bendis' "Ultimate Spider-Man." That the younger he was, the more truer he was to the original Spider-Man comic book stories and also the more unique and different he would be in comparison to the other Marvel heroes.

SPIDER-MAN is set for a July 28, 2017 release, but we should get to see the new web-slinger pop up for the first time in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR on May 6, 2016; although Kevin Feige said "No. Everyone takes for granted that he's in it, but I don't want people to have false expectations," when asked if he could tease Spider-Man's involvement in CIVIL WAR.