Tom Holland, more commonly known as Spider-Man, will star in a new Sony thriller titled Penthouse. It’s giving money, luxury and possibly death from the highest floor. And speculate we must, because Sony is keeping the plot secret.
What we do know is that the film comes from Drew Pearce, the writer behind Iron Man 3, The Fall Guy and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Pearce created the original idea and will write the screenplay. Holland will star and produce through Billy17, the company he founded with his brother Harry Holland and producing partner Will South.
According to Deadline, Sony acquired the project before it went elsewhere. Pearce will also produce through Point of No Return, with Ian Fisher serving as executive producer. And yes, just like you, we are also waiting to hear about the release date and additional cast members.
All we have is a title, Tom Holland and several people who know how to make an action movie. It’s also true that Hollywood has started productions with less. The title naturally creates a few expectations. Penthouses usually appear in films when somebody is extremely wealthy, hiding something or about to discover that floor-to-ceiling windows offer very little privacy during a crisis. They look impressive until the lift stops working and someone remembers they are several storeys above the ground.
But the more interesting part of the announcement may have nothing to do with the building.
Holland is continuing to build a career behind the camera. He has spent a large part of his adult life wearing the Spider-Man suit, performing stunts and attempting to stop Peter Parker’s personal life from collapsing for five minutes. But Holland is now 30. And although Spider-Man remains a rather useful job to have, he cannot spend the rest of his career waiting for Marvel and Sony to decide when New York needs saving again.
Through Billy17, he has the opportunity to develop his own projects and choose the kind of roles he wants to embody. That gives him more control than waiting for a script to arrive with his name attached. This makes complete sense because we have already seen him trying to move beyond Peter Parker. Holland appeared in Cherry, The Devil All the Time and The Crowded Room. He also played Nathan Drake in Uncharted and recently appeared in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Some of those projects worked better than others. But you know what? The fact that he is willing to try different angles is commendable. I suppose the question is: would a thriller suit him? From what we’ve seen, we know that Holland is good at playing characters who look confident for approximately three minutes before everything goes terribly wrong. He can handle action, but he also has the nervous energy needed for a story where the main character slowly realises that somebody has been lying. So it is possible that he could pull this off.
And Pearce may know what to do with that. Hotel Artemis, which he wrote and directed, placed criminals inside a secret hospital and allowed tension to build between people who should never have occupied the same room. His other films have mixed action with humour and characters who keep talking while dangerous things happen around them.
Of course, that does not tell us what Penthouse will be. For all we know, Holland could spend two hours trying to get the building’s Wi-Fi password.
But the project is original, and that alone makes it slightly unusual. It is not based on a comic, video game or television series from 1987 that somebody suddenly remembered.
Sony is betting on Holland without the Spider-Man costume. Holland, meanwhile, is becoming more involved in deciding what that version of his career looks like. Also a plot would be nice to get our adrenaline pumping.
But for now, at least he has moved up in the building.
