Tom Holland Has Slipped to a James Bond Long Shot, and the Superhero Stigma May Be Why

Tom Holland has been very vocal that James Bond is the role he wants more than any other. Yet at the end of April 2026, the places that track the odds and trading markets had him all the way at the bottom of the list, an underdog or even a long shot to land it, and I think the superhero stigma may be the reason.

It is safe to assume Holland will keep playing Spider-Man at least long enough to finish out another trilogy. Very generally, that is how contracts go, especially for Marvel and Sony. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day as the fourth installment, we can definitely expect a fifth and a sixth. But a day will come when Holland passes the mantle, either to another actor playing Peter Parker or over to Miles Morales, and then he will be free to take on other iconic roles.

For an actor who took on a role as iconic as Spider-Man in a franchise as huge as the MCU and absolutely nailed it, his position in the Bond race is shocking. Something does not add up here. It has been pervasive, especially recently in the MCU, and I believe it is going to heavily shape what the MCU looks like over the next two decades.

Tom Holland and Henry Cavill fell to the bottom of the James Bond market

At one time you would have heard names like Henry Cavill and Tom Holland at the top of the conversation about who would become the next 007. When I wrote this, they were near the bottom, with Holland at 3% and Cavill at 2%, both long shots to actually land the role.

At the top were names like Jacob Elordi, who sat at around a 22% chance. It was very surprising to see him up there when Holland was not. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, a name that has been circulating the role for some time, was also up there, alongside the actor who was the favorite.

The stigma around superhero movies has never gone away

We all know the advice Leonardo DiCaprio gave to Timothée Chalamet. It has become a meme at this point: "No superhero movies, no hard drugs."

Even with all the success superhero movies have had, and the success the genre has had as a whole on the back of the MCU over the last two decades or so in theaters, there has always been a sort of stigma surrounding superhero cinema from those in Hollywood. That is why people like Martin Scorsese have said all sorts of things about it not being cinema. You either want to be part of superhero films and think they are legitimate, or you do not.

That is also why you sometimes see a lot of division in people's takes on what is going on with the MCU. There is a desire to gatekeep what cinema can be and to say that whatever it is, it is not superhero movies. It is why you have not seen an actor win an Academy Award for any of the MCU movies. Robert Downey Jr., himself now an Academy Award winner, told Disney and Marvel not to campaign to get him an Academy Award for Avengers: Endgame or his work as Tony Stark. He basically knew how it was received.

Harrison Ford proves one actor can carry two iconic roles

Action stars like Tom Holland come along and absolutely crush a role like Spider-Man, and we have seen it in cinema time and time again. I would point directly to Harrison Ford, who was able to be not only Han Solo but also Indiana Jones. It is possible for one actor to carry two absolutely iconic roles.

Yes, there is a new 007 coming. At the time, the reboot was in its earliest stages of development, with the director of Dune set to direct it, which has a lot to do with this. Casting was expected sometime soon, which is why everybody was trying to weigh in.

Of everybody on that list, you could easily point to Tom Holland and say he is the most accomplished, has the biggest box office numbers, and is a proven draw in a huge franchise leading role. So what gives?

Age does not explain it when Jacob Elordi is in the top three

My first inclination was to say maybe Holland is just too young. I think of 007 as an older guy, especially given the castings over the last three or four decades. But Jacob Elordi is the same age as Tom Holland, and he was in the top three of the list to possibly get the role. So it does not have to do with age.

That makes me seriously consider whether it is the superhero stigma. Maybe whoever is directing 007, or whoever is in charge of developing the script and the project, does not think Spider-Man can be James Bond. I think that is absolutely ludicrous. Of all the names on the list, I would pick Tom Holland as number one. It just seems like that division and stigma around superhero movies simply will not go away, and you have to wonder whether that is what was stopping him from being one of the favorites.

There is nuance to this. Certain directors want to work with certain actors. That is why, very generally, you do not see an actor attached to a lead role before the director is locked in. Directors want to pick their own actors, or the studio gives them options and they pick one that works all round.

Holland may step away from Spider-Man to make room for 007

While I am shocked by all this, Tom Holland is still very young, and there is plenty of chance for him to be James Bond in the future. There are plenty of decades that could pass, and he could easily still get the role.

That is why I think this matters in the context of Holland as Spider-Man. After this next trilogy, it may be likely that he chooses to walk away from Peter Parker. Not because he could not easily play in a third trilogy for films seven, eight and nine, but because he wants to do something different and maybe wants to put some space between himself and Spider-Man so that later on he could play 007. It may be his choice to step away for that exact reason.

The stigma is already shaping who will work with Marvel

In the greater context of the MCU, we have seen this rearing its head mostly in the director's chair. You do not hear about big name directors lining up to take Marvel movies, because they know they have to work within the Marvel machine and the Marvel system, and it is simply not something they want to do.

We have seen it with talent too. Big name actors have apparently turned down Marvel, especially for the Fantastic Four, because they did not want to join the franchise or sign a seven movie deal. That kind of contract is very uncommon these days; actors usually sign smaller contracts for three or four pictures, with the assumption they will sign more. Still, some of these actors do not want to make the commitment, and they do not want the stigma.

You have to wonder, as Marvel Studios looks deeper for talent to expand the MCU's future, whether it will become harder now that it has worked its way through a majority of the directors in Hollywood. Look at the director credits during the Multiverse Saga and you will see names on huge Marvel films who had little or no experience doing anything like that. The speculation at the time was that this was all Marvel could get. The truth is that it was all they could get who wanted to play into their system, because there are rules to it. Add the stigma on top, and I think it creates a barrier to entry, maybe more than ever, for Marvel to lock down top talent.

X-Men casting will show whether top talent shies away

Where I expected to see this immediately is in the casting of the X-Men. According to Jeff Sneider, that casting was likely to start taking place that same week, and Daniel RPK had reported a conditional start time that may be for the following year.

Either way, the casting was set to happen soon, and we will have to see whether some of the top talent in the industry does not want to take X-Men roles because of the same stigma, in reverse, that might be working against Tom Holland getting James Bond, a role he has said is the one he most wants.

Do you think the superhero stigma is really what is keeping Tom Holland out of the running for 007?