Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed what most people already knew: Tom Holland's role in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey shaped how Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures mapped out Spider-Man: Brand New Day's release. Holland spent the better part of 2025 filming two of this summer's biggest productions, with The Odyssey and Brand New Day landing in theaters just weeks apart in July 2026. He was already known as Spider-Man, but playing Telemachus, Odysseus's son and a huge character in Nolan's adaptation, was a major opportunity for the 30-year-old actor. Pulling off both roles meant something had to give, and it showed up in Marvel's release calendars.
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is opening up about just how much of a complicated journey Spider-Man: Brand New Day's road to the screen really was. During a recent appearance at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, his alma mater, Feige got candid about the film's years-long, multi-draft development process, and how Holland's other summer blockbuster shaped that timeline more than most fans realized.
Feige was responding to a question about multiple versions of Brand New Day in the development process. It's a fair read on a script that passed through returning writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, the duo behind Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way Home, across more than four years of development.
But buried in his answer was an admission that half a year of that timeline exists specifically "because of The Odyssey," and that Marvel was briefly "paralyzed" from moving forward:
"There were a lot, there were a lot of versions. The credited screenwriters, Chris [McKenna] and Erik [Sommers], were the writers who came on to Homecoming and then did Far From Home, did No Way Home, and did this; they were the writers the whole time in that early development time. And it took a long time. I mean, it's been… What has it been? Four and a half years, since No Way Home. And some of that is because of The Odyssey, that extra half year is because of The Odyssey. But there was a time where we were a little paralyzed."
That "extra half year" lines up with what Holland has already described: he personally called Sony chief Tom Rothman to request the delay so he could play Telemachus, calling it an "uncomfortable" conversation.
The Odyssey shot for 91 days, from February 25 to August 5, 2025; Brand New Day picked up right after, filming August 3 through December 19.
While this must've been an exhausting stretch for Holland, the gap, instead of hurting Spider-Man, allowed Destin Daniel Cretton to join as director and gave the script room to breathe.
That spacing carried into the release calendar, too: Brand New Day moved from July 24 to July 31, 2026, landing two weeks behind The Odyssey (July 17) instead of one.
It raises the question of whether that six-month delay once had Brand New Day eyeing a Christmas 2025 slot before Avatar: Fire and Ash locked that date down. Either way, it worked out: The Odyssey has topped $1 billion to become Nolan's biggest hit ever, and Brand New Day has already crossed $1.7 billion worldwide.
When Will Spider-Man 5 Release?
So when could Spider-Man 5 actually arrive? Marvel's Phase 7 release calendar is filling up fast: Ghost Rider, Black Panther 3, and (likely) X-Men are going to fill 2028's key dates.
Despite the recent five-year gap, the entire Home trilogy was released between 2017 and 2021. Considering Brand New Day will be the highest-grossing Spidey film of all time, there's no reason to think they won't want to strike while the iron is hot.
There are a few hurdles to jump, however. Destin Daniel Cretton is set to shoot his live-action Naruto adaptation in 2027, and Holland himself isn't exactly free: his next role is the Fred Astaire biopic for director Paul King, which begins filming in January 2027. Between Cretton's Naruto commitment and Holland's own dance card, 2028 looks less realistic.
That leaves 2029 (a possible home to other expected sequels like Doctor Strange 3 and Deadpool 4) as the far more likely landing spot for Holland's fifth solo outing as Spider-Man. Honing in on the late July 2029 slot could be a really smart move for Sony and Marvel.
