Is Tom Holland Leaving Marvel? Tom Holland’s Acting Break Explained

Tom Holland is one of the hottest actors working today, an incredibly bankable star who has perfected the art of balancing record-breaking blockbusters with challenging dramatic roles. You want range? Tom Holland has the range, and his latest TV project — AppleTV+’s The Crowded Room — once again proves that Holland is way, way more than just Marvel’s web-slinger. So, how is Tom Holland celebrating this new release? By announcing that he’s taking a break from acting!

What does that mean? Does that mean we’ll have to go a year (or more) without seeing a new Tom Holland project? What does it mean for Spider-Man? Is Spider-Man 4 in the works? Have no fear, because there are actually answers to these questions!

Why is Tom Holland taking a break from acting?

It turns out that the very project that’s got Holland on a press tour is the exact one that’s caused him to want to pump the brakes. In The Crowded Room, Holland plays a man named Danny Sullivan, who is inspired by the real-life criminal Billy Milligan. Exactly who Sullivan is and what he did is presented as a bit of a mystery for an investigator — played by Amanda Seyfried — to solve. If you want to know what exactly the mystery is, you can look up Billy Milligan. If you want to remain spoiler-free, just know that this is Holland’s most intense role by far — and remember, he starred in The Devil All the Time.

It turns out that completing The Crowded Room took a toll on Tom, one that he’s now recovering from. “I’m no stranger to hard work. I’ve always sort of lived by this idea that hard work is good work,” Holland told Extra. “I really enjoyed [The Crowded Room], but then again, the show did break me. There did come a time where I was sort of like, ‘I need to have a break.’ I disappeared. I went to Mexico for a week and had some time on a beach. And I’m now taking a year off, and that is a result of how difficult this show was.”

What does a superstar like Tom Holland do in his spare time? “I’ve been seeing my family,” Holland continued. “I’ve been seeing my friends. I’ve been playing golf. I’ve been, you know, going to the garden center and buying plants and doing my best to keep them alive and all that sort of stuff. I’ve just been trying to be, you know, regular bloke from Kingston and just relax.”

Honestly, if you were as rich and successful as Tom Holland and had the chance to chill for a year, wouldn’t you?

Is Tom Holland quitting Spider-Man? Will there be a Spider-Man 4?

Just because Holland is taking a year off doesn’t mean he’s taking a permanent break from Spider-Man. In an interview with Screen Rant, Holland said that he loves the character and would “be lucky to play him again, but we’ll have to wait and see.” Holland’s future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe sounded a tad more certain in another interview published the following day by Inverse. Holland said that there is “some stuff going on” with a new Spider-Man film that he’s “excited about.” He added: “Whether or not it’ll come to fruition, who knows? But right now it’s looking pretty good, and we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Part of that uncertainty could be due to the WGA strike and the impending SAG strike, both of which will impact production on any Spider-project that’s currently in the works. Still, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige revealed to EW earlier this year that a new Spider-Man project has been in the works for a little while. “All I will say is that we have the story,” said Feige. “We have big ideas for that, and our writers are just putting pen to paper now.”

What other Tom Holland projects are in the works?

It looks like with the release of The Crowded Room, there are no other new Tom Holland projects in post-production or in the works. According to his IMDb, he’s attached to a new Spider-Man movie (remember that IMDb is user-edited, like Wikipedia) and is expected to play Fred Astaire in a biopic from Rocketman writer Lee Hall and Paddington director Paul King. That film is reported to have just found its director in February, so it’s most likely still in pre-production — and pre-production on something as high-profile as a Tom Holland-led Fred Astaire biopic released by Sony could take up the year that Holland’s going to spend playing golf and gardening.

The first three episodes of The Crowded Room are now available to stream on Apple TV+, with new episodes dropping every Friday through the end of July.