Celebrity or not, not all of our ideas are good ones! Spider-Man actor Tom Holland recently confessed that he pitched a James Bond origin story that wasn’t well-received by his target audience.
The 25-year-old English actor has had a thrilling career, kickstarting his career in a West End production of Billy Elliot when he was only twelve years old. He then graced the screen in a few lesser-known productions before landing his breakout role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Ever since, his career has been on an uphill slope. He has gone on to star in six Marvel movies, the Pixar movie Onward, and Netflix’s The Devil All The Time, amongst many others. Currently, Holland has been doing press for his upcoming release Uncharted, based on a series of popular video games. He will star in the flick alongside Mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas.
Holland on his failed James Bond pitch
In an interview with Games Radar, Holland talked about how his James Bond pitch didn’t resonate with the Bond Estate. However, lucky for him, it did reach the right people.
The actor shared that this pitch later brought him to Uncharted. “I had a meeting, after or during Spider-Man 2, with Sony to pitch this idea of a young Bond film that I’d come up with,” the actor began to say.
He continued, “It was the origin story of James Bond. It didn’t really make sense. It didn’t work. It was the dream of a young kid, and I don’t think the Bond estate were particularly interested.”
Holland then said that his idea “sparked” the creation of Uncharted. He told the outlet, “The idea of a young Bond film sparked this idea, in turn, that you could do a Nathan Drake story as an origin story, rather than as an addition to the games. And that opened a conversation.” He was later cast as Drake in the movie adaptation.
Holland gushes about discovering Uncharted
It turns out that Sony played an even bigger role than imagined when it comes to Holland’s draw to Uncharted. As reported by Games Rader, the Spider-Man actor admitted to discovering the Uncharted video games while on the set of Spider-Man.
While speaking at Sony’s CES 2022 briefing, Holland was quoted saying, “I’m a huge fan of the games. I hadn’t discovered the games until I started making Spider-Man: Homecoming. One of the luxuries of making these Spider-Man movies is they are made by Sony, and one of the luxuries of working for Sony is PlayStation.”
He continued to share the fun perks of working with the production company. He added, “So all the actors’ trailers were outfitted with the best TVs and the newest PlayStation. And one of the games they had given me was Uncharted.”
The actor was instantly drawn to the game, expressing that it was hard to stop playing at the end of his breaks. “As soon as we started, we didn’t stop. I remember them trying to drag me out of my trailer to come back to set. I was like, ‘No, no, no, we’re about to complete this mission, leave me alone,” said Holland.
Uncharted is expected to premiere in theaters on February 18.