Tom Holland is not in Avengers: Doomsday. Officially, technically, on paper, he is not there. But the paper keeps getting crumpled up and thrown away, because every signal around the movie says something different.
The official cast list has no Spider-Man. Marvel’s massive ensemble announcement skipped him completely, and Variety confirms he is currently not on the call sheet for the film.
Yet the rumors, the reports, the evasive answers, and the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Brand New Day all point one direction: Peter Parker is coming back, and he might already be in the movie.
The official answer: he is not on the list
When Marvel announced the Avengers: Doomsday cast in a live stream event, the room watched for one name that never came: Tom Holland.
The ensemble spans the Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Thunderbolts teams, with Robert Downey Jr. returning as Doctor Doom, but no Holland, and notably no multiverse variant of Peter Parker either.
And yet the concept art the Russos shared keeps putting Spider-Man on the board. One striking piece shows Spider-Man holding the king piece, which is the exact kind of visual tease Marvel deploys when a hero is more important than the cast list admits.
As it stands, the MCU’s Spider-Man is officially not going to appear in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday. That is the fact, and it is worth taking seriously.
But Marvel reportedly wants him
Here is where the official story starts to wobble. Multiple reports, including one attributed to The Hollywood Reporter, say Marvel Studios wants Holland’s Spider-Man in the film.
The scooper Daniel Richtman went further, saying Spider-Man was originally supposed to be in Doomsday, and that Marvel wanted him so badly they rewrote the script around the plan.
Richtman’s latest update walks that back, saying the rewrite removed him entirely and there is no cameo either. But the very existence of the flip flopping tells you how fluid this situation is.
Holland’s answer is suspicious
When Tom Holland was asked directly whether he would return as Spider-Man in Avengers: Doomsday, his answer was a masterpiece of corporate evasion: “I can’t answer those questions.”
That is not a no. A no is easy. “I can’t answer those questions” is the language of someone under a non disclosure agreement, and Marvel’s NDA game is legendary.
Holland has also been notorious at spoiling things he should not spoil. If he were truly out of the movie, the safest response would be a simple denial, and he did not give one.
The post-credits scene changes everything
The end of Spider-Man: Brand New Day plants the biggest flag of all. The post-credits scene shows Peter’s friend Ned’s Spidey Tracker app zooming out to reveal Spider-Man is no longer on Earth.
The app locates the hero out in space, and the screen announces that “Spider-Man will return,” with no date attached.
If Spider-Man is off planet and coming back, the only movies big enough to bring him home are Avengers: Doomsday and its sequel Secret Wars. Marvel does not put a post-credits scene like that in without a plan.
The masked Spider-Man theory
One popular theory threading the needle: Spider-Man appears in Doomsday but stays masked, with Holland recording his lines as voice over only.
That would explain his absence from the cast announcement while still letting the character join the fight. No face reveal, no marketing obligation, no spoiler.
There are also reports that Holland’s stunt double may have worked on Doomsday reshoots, which would be a very on brand way for Marvel to hide a cameo in plain sight.
The different Spider-Man rumor
Add one more layer: some scoopers claim Doomsday will include a version of Spider-Man, just not necessarily Tom Holland’s.
A multiverse variant, played by a different actor, would let the movie have Spider-Man without touching Sony’s deal for the main version. It is the classic compromise play.
Whether that variant is Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, or someone entirely new is the part nobody can agree on. Fans on r/marvelstudios are debating the same thing, with one popular reading of the Doomsday concept art holding that Spider-Man is not in this film but has a big role in Secret Wars.
If not Doomsday, then Secret Wars
Even if Holland is truly absent from Doomsday, the post-credits scene points squarely at Avengers: Secret Wars, the follow up scheduled for next year.
In the comics, Secret Wars brings every hero from across the multiverse into one dimension called Battleworld, and that is the perfect arena for a multiverse Spider-Man reunion.
Variety’s reading is exactly that: the space bound teaser may be pointing past Doomsday entirely, to the movie after it.
The bottom line
So is Tom Holland’s Spider-Man secretly in Avengers: Doomsday? The honest answer is: probably not officially, but absolutely possibly.
He is not on the call sheet. The cast announcement skipped him. But Marvel reportedly wants him, the script was reportedly rewritten around him, his non answer is not a no, and the post-credits scene has him floating in space with a “will return” promise.
If he is not in Doomsday, he is in Secret Wars, and if he is in Secret Wars, the Spider-Man that leaves Earth in Brand New Day has to come home somewhere.
Marvel is not going to spoil it, Holland is not going to tell you, and the movie releases on December 18, 2026. Mark the date, because Peter Parker is coming back, and it is going to be loud.
In the meantime, keep your eye on the chessboard. The Russos did not put Spider-Man holding the king piece in their concept art by accident.
The same directors shared a full framed portrait of Spider-Man for Brand New Day, showing him with a chess knight and the Infinity Stones, a museum painting style portrait that keeps the chess metaphor going through the entire Spider-Man arc.
The chessboard poster that circulated with the film’s teaser is fan art by BossLogic (Kode Abdo), the artist Robert Downey Jr credited twice when he shared it. The spider on that board is BossLogic’s own touch, not studio marketing, and so is the “Infinity Vision” label.
That label points at a real story though. Avengers: Doomsday will not screen in IMAX during its December 18 opening, because Warner Bros locked up the IMAX screens for Dune: Part Three. Disney responded by launching its own premium large format certification called Infinity Vision, announced at CinemaCon, certifying theaters with the biggest screens and best sound.
The fan art named the format before most people knew what it was. That is the chess game happening around this movie, and Spider-Man is somewhere on the board.
