James Gunn Has Some Serious Praise for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War

By now, we’ve all seen the Captain America: Civil War trailer featuring none other than our brand new Spider-Man, and that means we’ve all got opinions on him despite his sparing few seconds of screen time. Thankfully, we can get some perspective from one of Marvel’s most vocal directors: Guardians of the Galaxy‘s James Gunn.

Gunn’s Guardians might not be crossing over with the rest of Marvel’s cinematic universe anytime soon according to him, but that eventuality is still on the horizon, and Gunn’s aware of what the rest of that universe is up to. He’s actually seen Civil War unlike the rest of us, which makes his statements about Tom Holland’s Spider-Man pretty encouraging, especially since they’re so overwhelmingly positive:

I think @TomHolland1996 is the best Spidey/Peter Parker ever by a country mile. https://t.co/SiH9yP8NvW

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 10, 2016

That’s good, but this one really goes beyond just your everyday support:

It’s his own thing. He is to Spidey as Downey is to Iron Man, Ledger was to the Joker, Pratt is to Star-Lord. https://t.co/uvp9qJb2Cx

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) March 10, 2016

That’s not a compliment you just throw around. (I mean, even Christian Bale admits that Heath Ledger stole the show in his Batman series.) Sure, you could take the stance that Gunn’s probably just fulfilling his hype machine duties, but then he’d get pretty snippy with you. Really, both of our screen incarnations of Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield have brought different things to the role, but I wouldn’t say either of them quite fit into the role like the performances Gunn is referencing (regardless of what you think of their respective movies, which also had their own ups and downs).

It’s great—and a bit weird at the same time—to finally see Spidey back home where he belongs in the MCU, so the pressure’s on for Holland and Civil War‘s creative team to make sure this is the version of the character we all want to remember as the Spider-Man. That can’t be easy to deal with, but it’s good to hear that they just might have pulled it off. We’ll see for ourselves on May 6.

(via GamesRadar, image via Marvel Entertainment)

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