During last year's Disney+ Day, Marvel Studios announced plans for an MCU-set animated series titled Spider-Man: Freshman Year. Taking place before Peter Parker was recruited to join The Avengers by Iron Man, very little has been revealed beyond the fact that, as the title suggests, the story takes place during the web-slinger's Freshman Year at high school.
Chances are we'll finally meet Uncle Ben, learn how Peter gained his powers, and see him in action in that homemade costume, so there are lots of reasons to be excited for this one.
Unfortunately, it appears the return of Tom Holland as Spider-Man won't be among them.
According to The Illuminerdi, the actor won't reprise his MCU role in the animated series. This isn't a surprise in many ways, as the actor didn't lend his voice to What If...? Spider-Man played a key role in "What If...Zombies?!" but actor Hudson Thames stepped in to play the character (and did a pretty amazing job, in fairness).
As far as we know, Holland still hasn't signed up to return for Spider-Man 4, and we're betting an animated TV series wouldn't be a priority for the in-demand actor, regardless. It also likely saves Marvel Studios a fair bit of money, though they did enlist many A-List actors for that first season of What If...? Despite that, noteworthy names like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. didn't return.
Nothing is official quite yet, and we're hoping for some news during the Marvel Studios Animation panel at this year's San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. Failing that, we could learn more in September on Disney+ Day.
Speaking to us last year, Holland shared his thoughts on why the wall-crawler needs to take some time off. "I think, for me, as the guy that plays Spider-Man - so you could say that I know him the best - I think what’s important is that he needs to take a break," the actor explained. "We need to allow the audience to let him breathe and figure out tonally how we’re going to bring this character back, if we bring this character back."
Spider-Man: Freshman Year doesn't currently have a release date.