Bob Iger remembers the desperate phone call from the Peter Parker depicter to save the Spidey franchise after months of negotiations between Disney and Sony broke down.
- Dec 19, 2019
AceShowbiz - Disney boss Bob Iger has recalled the conversation he had with Tom Holland that ultimately led to the saving of "Spider-Man".
The web-slinging superhero was briefly ousted from the MCU after talks between heads at Disney and Sony Pictures, who own the screen rights to the comic book character, stalled over the summer.
It was later revealed that a call by Holland, who plays Spider-Man in the newest films, had made bosses reconsider, with the actor admitting he was "drunk" at the time of the conversation as he'd been at a pub quiz in London.
On Wednesday, December 18, Iger spoke to Us Weekly about the "good conversation" he and Holland had, admitting the screen star pulled out all the stops to try and get him to reconsider.
"I couldn't tell if he was drunk, but I called him because I knew that he was upset and he wanted to talk to me about the status of Spider-Man," Iger said. "And at the time that I called him, he was at a pub in, I think, London with his family, and he said, 'If it's noisy, I just stepped out of a pub.' "
"The reason I called him is I knew how important it was to him and I knew how important he was to us. He asked to talk to me about it, to express how upset he was. And because of how much I cared about him, I called him. And he said, 'Please, please.' He (pleaded) with me. 'Is there anything you can do? Just please, sir, please? Is there anything that you can do?' I said, 'Tom, I will try.'…I immediately got on the phone afterward and started trying."
A new deal between Disney and Sony was announced in September, a month after negotiations had originally broken down.