Spider-Man Star Tom Holland on No Way Home Oscar Chances: "It Would Be a Huge Honor"

Will Spider-Man: No Way Home take home gold at the 2022 Oscars? In a new interview, star Tom Holland says it would "obviously be a huge honor" for the Marvel blockbuster to be the first since 2018's Black Panther to be nominated in the Best Picture category at this year's 94th Academy Awards. This month, producers Sony Pictures started to roll out an Oscars campaign push for consideration in all categories, including Best Picture. If nominated, Spider-Man: No Way Home would be just the third superhero movie — behind Marvel's Black Panther and DC's Joker — to be considered for Hollywood's most prestigious award.

"We're all incredibly proud of the film. It would obviously be a huge honor if it was nominated for an Oscar, but that's not how we like to validate ourselves," Holland told FOX 5 Washington DC when asked about Spider-Man's Oscar chances. "We like to validate ourselves with the love we receive from the general public, and so far that has been through the roof. So for me, with this film and this character, I've already achieved everything I would like to."

In the final chapter of Marvel and Sony's Spider-Man trilogy, a magic spell cast by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) brings multiversal villains and heroes alike into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, among them Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus (Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina) and Variant Spider-Men (Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield). For Holland, fan reaction to the superstar returns in No Way Home is rewarding enough. 

"You see these fan reactions of Andrew coming through that portal, and I've never seen anything like that in the theater before. I've never seen that kind of audience reaction. And to be a part of that was so emotional," Holland said. "I can't watch those videos without getting really, really emotional. At the premiere, I was in floods of tears at the end of that movie. It was a combination of how proud I am of the movie, how great the movie was, how emotional I was about the kind of end of this chapter, and what we've all achieved."

Holland added, "So whether it is an Oscar movie or not, it sort of has no bearing on me. It would be amazing if it is, but if it's not, I'm so proud of what [director] Jon Watts has achieved." 

Should it be nominated and go on to receive an Oscar, No Way Home would be the third Spider-Man movie to win gold. The Academy awarded Spider-Man 2 (2004) for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) received the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film.

After shattering global box office records and becoming the first film since 2019 to earn more than a billion dollars — current totals stand at $1.73 billion since swinging into theaters on December 17 — Spider-Man is the most successful movie since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"Quality commerciality is really hard to do. No Way Home is superb filmmaking," Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures, previously told The Hollywood Reporter about Spidey going for gold. "And this is what the Academy needs to stay connected to."

Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing exclusively in theaters and will soon be available to own on digital.