Joe Russo calls Tom Holland the last great movie star — and hasn't cast him in Avengers: Doomsday

Joe Russo went on CBR's retrospective show in October and delivered the kind of quote publicists frame. Discussing the staggering run of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the Endgame co-director credited the movie's success to its lead:

"We've said this before, he's the last great movie star."

— Joe Russo, to CBR

Russo went further: Holland has a vintage quality from a time that no longer exists, an authenticity and warmth that very few actors in history have had, and the character comes straight off the comics page when he plays it. All of which raises the question Russo wasn't asked on camera. He is currently finishing Avengers: Doomsday, out December 18 — and Spider-Man is not in its announced cast. Neither is he slated for Secret Wars.

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The numbers Russo is complimenting

To be fair to the compliment, "star power" undersells it. Brand New Day opened on July 31 and has spent the autumn rewriting the record book:

• $360.1 million domestic opening — an all-time record.
• $927 million global opening, also a record, with $1 billion worldwide in six days.
• $2 billion in 19 days, the second-fastest ever behind Endgame.
• $2.5 billion and counting — only Endgame and Avatar have ever gone higher, and Brand New Day is the first solo superhero movie to clear $2 billion.

Which produces the awkward geometry of this news cycle. The record Holland's movie is now chasing — Endgame's $2.8 billion — belongs to the Russo brothers. The directors whose crown is in danger are publicly calling the man taking it the last great movie star, while their own comeback movie goes to theaters without him.

Holland's Spider-Man is $300 million away from catching Endgame. The Endgame directors' new Avengers movie doesn't have him.

The asterisk everyone is holding onto

Nobody serious believes the MCU benches a $2.5 billion asset through both halves of its biggest event. Brand New Day's post-credits scene shows Spider-Man being tracked from space, which fans have read as his on-ramp into the Avengers storyline, and Marvel has a well-documented habit of hiding cast members until opening night — Holland himself has spent a decade as the franchise's most beloved spoiler risk.

The Russos directed Holland in Civil War, Infinity War, Endgame, and their non-Marvel film Cherry; Joe Russo plainly isn't avoiding him. So either Doomsday really is the one Avengers movie that skips the last great movie star, or the loudest compliment of the month doubles as misdirection. Ten weeks until we find out which.

Previously we wrote: Two Disney originals already flopped on Thanksgiving — Hexed is next, from a director of one of them