The Russo Brothers adore Tom Holland (they’ve even made a highly-anticipated, non-MCU film, Cherry, with him that will come out.. eventually), and the Spider-Man star is nothing if not candid. That’s a recipe for him admitting to the Russos that he’d never seen the original Star Wars trilogy upon entering the MCU, so they “busted his chops,” presumably for a few reasons. For one thing, watching this trilogy is a rite of passage for movie fans (and nerds) of any age, and even though Tom once admitted to wetting his pants as a four-year-old boy while watching The Phantom Menace, there’s no skipping the original. For another thing, Captain America: Civil War actually references The Empire Strikes Back (more on that in a minute), so naturally, the Russos urged him to fix this giant hole in his pop cultural realm of knowledge.
While speaking with Fox 5 DC to promote Pizza Film School (the Russo Bros’ Instagram Live series), Joe and Anthony revealed that they were “stunned” when Tom made his admission. Joe said that the pair instructed Tom to “invest some of his time” catching up with classic movies, and they have “since busted his chops enough” that he must have watched the original trilogy by now. Anthony, for his part, was actually thrilled to hear something so unexpected from Tom. He actually sounds maybe too thrilled:
“I actually got really excited when he said he hadn’t seen it because the idea was so novel to me and unexpected. I was like, ‘This is fantastic.’ Tom Holland is a guy whose sensibilities we really admire and value, and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, we get to tap into his sensibilities and they’re unaffected by Star Wars.’ I’m like, ‘What is that? What does that mean?’ I was very excited about that.”
It’s hard to believe that Holland came to the MCU while being so “unaffected” by important nerd films, but Tom can’t help but speak the truth, even when it gets him into some trouble. As noted above, it’s especially important for him to know some particulars about Empire Strikes Back because fans of both films have spent a lot of time drawing parallels (whether they’re a stretch or not) between the the two movies. One Easter egg is a big one though, when Peter Parker (who is obviously Team Iron Man) comes up with a strategy similar to when “they’re on that snowy planet with the walking thingies” to take down Ant-Man in his blown-up form. He’s, of course, talking about the AT-AT Walkers on the planet Hoth, where the Rogue Squadron tripped up the Walkers’ legs. Parker called Empire (from 1980) “a really old movie” (sobering!), but he combined his film-nerdery and ingenuity to topple Ant-Man.
Good on the Russos for pushing Tom to watch more “really old” movies. The filmmaking duo is hosting new episodes of Pizza Film School every Friday.
(Via Fox 5 DC)