Self-sabotage and heartbreak: The real reason why Andrew Garfield was replaced as Spider-Man Tom Holland

Andrew Garfield was given a shot at redemption with Spider-Man: No Way Home, and he grabbed it with both hands. After starring as the popular Marvel superhero in two films — 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — the actor was unceremoniously dropped from the franchise. Tom Holland was hired as his replacement shortly afterwards, and introduced as the new Spider-Man in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.
But for a while, it seemed like Garfield would continue playing the character for several years. A third and fourth film were already announced, but with the box office underperformance of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, coupled with a leaked information about the studio’s displeasure at Garfield’s behaviour on one occasion in particular, it was decided that the franchise should be rebooted.

It was revealed during the infamous Sony hack of 2014 that studio representatives were left red-faced after Garfield failed to show up at a lavish event in Brazil, where the release date for the third Amazing Spider-Man film was to be announced. Garfield allegedly cancelled the appearance at the last moment, much to the displeasure of studio brass. “Here we are about one hour away from our gala event and Andrew decides he doesn’t want to attend. He has a rather scruffy beard and he just wants to be left alone,” a part of the email chain between Sony reps, Garfield’s reps, and Sony chief Amy Pascal read.
In a 2016 interview with The Guardian, Garfield was asked point-blank if he was fired from the role after self-sabotaging his reputation with the studio. He said, “No, I don’t think so. What I’ll proudly say is that I didn’t compromise who I was, I was only ever myself. And that might have been difficult for some people.”
Discussing the recasting in more detail, he told the Daily Beast in 2014, “I think what happened was, through the pre-production, production, and post-production, when you have something that works as a whole, and then you start removing portions of it – because there was even more of it than was in the final cut, and everything was related. Once you start removing things and saying, ‘No, that doesn’t work,’ then the thread is broken, and it’s hard to go with the flow of the story.”

In one of Variety’s Actors on Actors sessions, he admitted that he was heartbroken the experience. He told Amy Adams, “I signed up to serve the story and serve this incredible character that I’ve been dressing as since I was three, and then it gets compromised and it breaks your heart. I got heartbroken a little bit.”
But the actor appears to have softened his stance about the whole situation after being called back for No Way Home. Looking back on his time as the character, Garfield told Variety, “It was only beautiful. I got to meet Emma [Stone] and work with her and Sally Field. I had karma with Amy Pascal, who was a mother figure, and we would fight, but ultimately, we loved each other on a deep level. We tried to meet as much in the middle as we could in terms of why I wanted to do this role, and what her needs were as the head of the studio.”