Spider-Man 4? Tom Holland's MCU return could be sooner than you think

One of the most impressive things about Spider-Man: No Way Home is how it manages to serve as a second origin story for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker.

Not only does No Way Home strip Holland’s Peter of his most powerful connections, but it also turns him into a poor, inventive kid. By the time No Way Home is over, the MCU’s Peter Parker is closer than he’s ever been to the version of Spider-Man that fans have come to know and love in the comics.

Now, even though Marvel chose not to make any references to Spider-Man during its recent San Diego Comic-Con panel, it sounds like the studio plans to stick to the promise it made at the end of No Way Home.

Spider-Man’s Future in the MCU — In a recent interview with MTV News, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige briefly teased what kind of adventures might lie in store for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.

While talking about the current state of the MCU, Feige said, “We’ve got Blade, we’ve got Doctor Strange, we’ve got the supernatural angles. We’ve got the street-level with our announcement of Daredevil, and of course, Spidey going into the street-level heroes.”

Feige’s comments leave the door open for future Spider-Man movies to go in a number of different directions, but they suggest that Peter Parker’s next MCU adventure will likely be on a smaller scale than his most recent big-screen outings.

Scaled-Down Storytelling — Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of the most ambitious superhero movies ever made. The film’s scale is so staggering, in fact, that it’s hard to imagine a solo Spider-Man movie going even bigger. The scaled-down direction that Feige hinted at makes a lot of sense for the future of Marvel webslinger.

Peter Parker is, after all, one of the few Marvel heroes who can work as both a street-level defender and a global Avenger. Up to this point, Holland’s Spider-Man has largely existed as the latter, a hero who’s repeatedly taken on global and multiversal threats. Peter’s return to his humble origins at the end of No Way Home opened the door for Marvel to start telling smaller Spider-Man stories moving forward.

If Feige’s comments are to be believed, then it sounds like the studio is going to take advantage of that opportunity. That’s an exciting possibility, because it means that Holland’s Peter may finally get the opportunity to interact with some of Spider-Man’s street-level comic book allies.

Coming off Charlie Cox’s cameo as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home, there’s never been a better time for Marvel and Sony to begin working on, say, a Spider-Man and Daredevil team-up. Notably, Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again Disney+ series could even be the perfect project to tee up a big-screen Daredevil and Spider-Man crossover.

The Inverse Analysis — It’s worth noting that Marvel Studios isn’t the only party that gets to decide what Spider-Man’s big-screen future is going to look like. It’s entirely possible that Sony may decide it wants its Spider-Man movies to continue existing on a scale closer to No Way Home than 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming.

But for what it’s worth, a scaled-down film that brings in street-level vigilantes like Daredevil would be a refreshing change of pace for Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise coming off the massive, multiversal beast that is No Way Home.