Tom Holland Addresses Spider-Man Meeting Robert Downey Jr’s Doctor Doom (& Drops a Huge Hint)

June 20, 2026, 3:14pm

As it stands, the MCU’s Spider-Man isn’t going to appear in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday: Tom Holland wasn’t assigned a chair when Marvel spent hours drip-feeding the cast to a massive captive audience. Eyebrows were certainly raised, given that his is one of the strongest and most popular brands in the franchise, but there is enough story logic to explain why he might be sitting the crossover event out. After all, Spider-Man: No Way Home wiped Peter Parker out of the Avengers’ memory, and we don’t yet know how Brand New Day will leave the web-slinger. But we might just have had a major hint about his future as an Avenger.

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Sony is currently turning up the heat of Brand New Day‘s marketing campaign ahead of this Summer’s release, and Holland is inevitably being asked about what comes next. He’s talked about Spidey’s future being bright and the chance of meeting “exciting new characters” (prompting lots of fan speculation about Miles Morales, inevitably), and he’s also offered an interesting comment on Robert Downey Jr’s return to the MCU as Avengers: Doomsday villain Doctor Doom. Speaking to Cinemania, Holland discussed finding out about Downey Jr’s return and telling Zendaya, his new wife, and dropped an intriguing hint:

“I think I hung up the phone and was like, ‘Downey’s coming back… Yeah, he just called me. And I caught up with him a couple days ago on the phone. Yeah, we’ll just have casual catch ups every now and then. He checks in. And he just told me – and it’s really exciting… I don’t know a lot about those movies, I think by design. I have a reputation for spoiling certain things, and I think the studios are keeping me from the juicy details. But when I do get to grace that set, I’m so curious — you know, what does that mean for Peter? And how does that work? I’m very excited about… whatever it is they’re doing.”

Wait, Is Spider-Man Meeting Doctor Doom After All?

While Holland is cagey about the actual plans (and let’s be honest here, it does feel like he hams this idea that he spoils everything up as a subtly genius tool to dodge questions now), the line “when I do get to grace that set” does rather set the expectation that he’s going to come face to face with Robert Downey Jr’s Doom. It’s interesting that he’s also tuned into one of the biggest questions fans have had about RDJ’s recasting – how that will impact his loved ones, and in Peter’s case, his surrogate son. There are conflicting theories out there, but we have to assume that Doom looking exactly like Tony Stark won’t just be ignored. We don’t have answers yet, but Peter is definitely the most intriguing possible encounter for Doom.

At this stage, if the marketing is to be believed, it’s unlikely Peter will appear in Doomsday, because he doesn’t really have any ties to the other Avengers currently. Or at least they don’t believe he has. He does obviously have a renewed relationship with Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner, but he’s also not in Doomsday as far as we know, and it feels unlikely that Brand New Day has space to resolve his Avengers alienation in time for Doomsday. Personally, I can see Holland being held back for Secret Wars, or the very final moments of Doomsday that set it up. My head canon has that movie ending with Peter landing in Battle World, seeing Doom and saying (possibly off-screen) “Mr Stark?!” Yes, Marvel Studios, I am available to write screenplays if needed.

Here’s the full interview with Cinemania: