Ah, yes, it's the time of the year once again for the question nobody asked: do Marvel films qualify as art? Ever since veteran American auteur, Martin Scorsese made a throwaway comment in conversation with Empire in 2019—within an interview promoting his then Oscar-contender, The Irishman—the discourse has raged. And now, with the meteoric box office success of Spider-Man: No Way Home in mind, the question of whether MCU titles can be considered Oscar-worthy has come to the fore. Spidey star Tom Holland has had his say on the matter in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and the spandex-clad leading man was unequivocal, to say the least.

He brought up Scorsese in the first instance, alluding to his previously mentioned stance. In Holland's words:

"You can ask [Martin] Scorsese ‘Would you want to make a Marvel movie?’ But he doesn’t know what it’s like because he’s never made one. [...] I’ve made Marvel movies and I’ve also made movies that have been in the conversation in the world of the Oscars, and the only difference, really, is one is much more expensive than the other. But the way I break down the character, the way the director etches out the arc of the story and characters — it’s all the same, just done on a different scale. So I do think they’re real art.”

Most cineastes, be it Marvel fans or otherwise, would probably quarrel with Holland's definition of "real art," but it's no doubt an impassioned defense. After all, Spidey has attracted audiences like nothing else over the past two years, let alone during this Oscar season. On that sense of scale, Holland had a lot more to say, evoking the examples of the likes of co-star Benedict Cumberbatch, who stars this year in Oscars frontrunner The Power of the Dog. The 25-year-old says:

“When you’re making these films, you know that good or bad, millions of people will see them, whereas when you’re making a small indie film, if it’s not very good no one will watch it, so it comes with different levels of pressure. I mean, you can also ask Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr. or Scarlett Johansson — people who have made the kinds of movies that are ‘Oscar-worthy’ and also made superhero movies — and they will tell you that they’re the same, just on a different scale. And there’s less Spandex in ‘Oscar movies.'”

Spider Man No Way Home Tom Holland
Image via Sony

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It's not as though a nomination for No Way Home would be entirely unprecedented: the critically revered Black Panther was acknowledged for its groundbreaking, representative, and diverse ensemble with a Best Picture nomination in 2019. It became the first, and thus far only, superhero film to be nominated for the top award, although Disney mounted a showy albeit ultimately unsuccessful campaign for Avengers: Endgame the following year.

It might seem a reach for now that Spidey'll enter the same conversation, but given the resuscitative impact it has had on film exhibitions both domestically and abroad, anything could happen.