Destin Daniel Cretton is taking over Spider-Man

When TIFF is happening, I don’t like to think about anything else which, naturally, means Marvel is up to some nonsense. Whenever you least want to work, you can count on Disney and/or Marvel to force you to work. (I’m glad they seemed to have broken their habit of releasing trailers on Thanksgiving Day!) News broke yesterday that Destin Daniel Cretton has been hired to direct Spider-Man 4, taking over from Jon Watts, who directed the MCU trilogy of Spidey movies. Tom Holland will return as Peter Parker.

Cretton previously directed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings for Marvel, and was supposed to direct Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, but that project got pushed around the schedule and totally reworked after Jonathan Majors was dropped as Kang. It’s now one of the Avengers movies the Russo Brothers will direct, so Cretton is free to take over duties on Spider-Man 4. (He also has the Disney+ series Wonder Man coming next year, which he co-created with Andrew Guest.) Amazingly, for as many Spider-Man movies as have been made, Cretton is only the fourth director to helm a Spidey film. 

What Spider-Man 4 is about and who is the villain is currently unknown, but as they are targeting an early 2025 start date, we are probably going to hear a lot about this movie over the next few months as they fill out the cast. There’s no word yet on the status of Zendaya and Jacob Batalon, but it’s hard to imagine they won’t return, since Spider-Man: No Way Home basically ended on a cliffhanger, with Peter cut off from his friends. They must reunite! One of the most charming and emotionally rewarding elements of the MCU trilogy is that this iteration of Peter Parker never tried that “I work alone” bullsh-t. He always had his friends to rely on but, of course, now they don’t remember him. Whatever else happens in Spider-Man 4, Peter is starting from a place of loneliness and isolation. Bummer! 

This is probably the film that will (finally) introduce the MCU’s version of Norman Osborn, though, and get the MCU Oscorp ball rolling, especially since Tony Stark is out of the picture as Peter’s mentor. It’ll be interesting to see if they cast someone new, or just bring back Willem Dafoe, like they brought back JK Simmons as a new version of J. Jonah Jameson. Similarly, I cannot WAIT to see who they cast as Harry Osborn. When Tom Holland was cast as Spider-Man, he was virtually unknown. Jacob Batalon was also an unknown, and while Zendaya was a known entity, she was trying to break out of her Disney kid shell. Today, though, Tom and Zendaya are two of the biggest young movie stars in the world. Who do they cast to match them? Jacob Elordi? It’s going to be Jacob Elordi, isn’t it. (Lainey: can you imagine the drama? Remember when Zendaya tried it with Jacob Elordi and realised, real quick, that he was not it, giving us the internet’s most beloved celebrity relationship now known as Tomdaya?) 

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