Tom Holland Gets Paid: Spider-Man Earned the Insane Number

There is a version of Hollywood where $20 million is still a number that makes people pause. Tom Holland is not living in that version. According to reports circulating this week, Holland's deal for *Spider-Man: Brand New Day* includes a $20 million base salary wrapped inside a total package that could reach $100 million once backend, bonuses, and whatever other arrangements his people negotiated are factored in. A-list confirmed. Conversation closed.

The number matters less than what it signals. Marvel spent years treating its actors as interchangeable components — the character was the star, the person wearing the suit was almost incidental. Holland changed that equation quietly, film by film, until the equation had no choice but to change back. *No Way Home* did that. The chemistry with Zendaya did that. Three movies of actually being good in a genre that rewards being present over being talented — and now the suit comes with a nine-figure deal attached.

Elsewhere in things worth paying attention to: *Lanterns* premiered on HBO and immediately killed someone important in the first episode, which is either Damon Lindelof being Damon Lindelof or DC Studios actually letting someone swing properly for once. Given that Lindelof himself apparently couldn't believe they got away with it, the answer is probably both. The premiere death has already eaten three days of discourse, which means whatever *Lanterns* is doing, it's working.

Jordan Firstman's *Club Kid* has a trailer out now through A24 — Cannes favourite, debut feature, the kind of film that arrives tender and strange and makes you feel slightly embarrassed about the last three things you watched on Netflix. The A24 fingerprints are everywhere in the best possible way.

And Ken Russell's *The Devils* — the 1971 film that was effectively buried by its own studio for being too honest, too violent, too everything — has been restored and is playing NYFF after stops at Cannes and TIFF. If you have never seen it, the restored cut is your moment. If you have seen it, you already know why this matters.

The devastating verdict, then: Tom Holland's $100 million proves Marvel finally learned what the rest of us knew at the end of *No Way Home* — the suit was never the star.