Tom Holland Isn't Sure Live-Action Can Match Marvel's Spider-Man 2's Symbiote Suit

Tom Holland has gone on record saying Marvel's Spider-Man 2 set the bar for the symbiote suit so high that he genuinely doesn't know how a live-action version could compete — especially if the MCU wants that gooey, alien look Insomniac nailed.

Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Holland praised Tobey Maguire's practical black suit from Spider-Man 3 but admitted the Insomniac game changed the conversation. "I think if we ever got to do a black suit in Spider-Man, I don't know how we would tackle that challenge," he said. "They did it so well in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and I don't know how you make a suit that's similar to the one in the game without having a CG component. I don't know how you would do that." The core tension is a familiar one in Spider-Man fandom — cloth-like and practical versus slimy and otherworldly — and Insomniac firmly planted their flag on the alien side.

Holland's MCU suits have leaned heavily on CG in past films, often to the point of losing physical texture and character. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is pushing back against that trend, embracing visible wrinkles, the outline of Peter's ears through the mask, and close-ups through the lens eyes — details that make the suit feel like a real object. A symbiote suit that's supposed to look alive and shifting is a much harder problem to solve practically, though Maguire's 2007 version proves a cloth approach is at least achievable.

As for whether the MCU will ever go there — the groundwork is already laid. Tom Hardy's Venom left a piece of symbiote behind at the end of No Way Home, though it hasn't connected with Peter Parker yet. Avengers: Secret Wars is also a natural candidate, since that's the comic storyline where Peter originally acquires the black suit, but Marvel's adaptations rarely follow the source material beat for beat.