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Peter Parker is about to return to the MCU — with a new director in tow. But don’t worry: that director is already very familiar with the way Marvel works. Reports are coming in that Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton has signed on the dotted line to helm Spider-Man 4, with Tom Holland returning for the new movie.

The feature, which has not been officially confirmed by either Marvel Studios or Sony Pictures — both of which would be co-producing the feature, as they have every Spider-Man movie since 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming — will be overseen by former Sony head Amy Pascal and Marvel Studios’ boss Kevin Feige, with writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who wrote both Spider-Man: Far from Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home, returning to script the new installment.

A fourth Spider-Man movie starring Holland has been on the cards since Tom Holland teased in a 2023 interview that he had “found the reason why” he would return to the role. In the same interview, he admitted that he was “a little apprehensive” about returning to Peter Parker, saying, “There’s a bit of a stigma about the fourth one in all franchises. I feel like we hit a home run with our first franchise and there’s a part of me that wants to walk away with my head held high and pass the baton to the next lucky kid that gets to bring this character to life.” And yet, here he is, becoming only the second Marvel hero to return for a fourth solo movie. (Chris Hemsworth’s Thor was the first.)

Cretton taking on the project means the Spider-Man franchise will have a new director for the first time since Jon Watts took on Homecoming; he stayed around for all three of Tom Holland’s features as the hero to date. This will mark his third project with Marvel; in addition to 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, he is also the co-creator and executive producer of the upcoming Disney+ miniseries Wonder Man, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the title character. Cretton was also, briefly, the director for the fifth Avengers movie, but departed the project before it was retooled as Avengers: Doomsday under the auspices of the Russo Brothers.

The Hollywood Reporter initially broke the news of Cretton’s involvement with the new Spider-Man movie.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights: How Marvel Studios is now working "much more closely" to sell Marvel comics, where Marvel sees its future audience (and it's not at Marvel, yet!), Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak, the biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows, Marvel's accidental closure on the Kang storyline, and Phil Coulson is the heart of the MCU (and it's time it starts beating again).