It’s been five years since Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Spider-Man last swung into theaters with Spider-Man: No Way Home. Earning just under $2 billion, No Way Home reset the character’s status quo and opening the door for a new start. When Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens on July 31, it will bring with it at least two other iconic heroes and some clues as to the future of Marvel at the movies.
1. What Happened in No Way Home?
Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Sony Pictures Entertainment)
At the climax of Spider-Man: No Way Home, to undo the rampant effects of a botched spell by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) traded saving the world from an incursion of villains from across the multiverse in exchange for everyone forgetting who he was. And that meant not just forgetting that Peter Parker was Spider-Man; it meant that his closet friends and allies, from Doctor Strange to his buddy Ned (Jacob Batalon) to his girlfriend MJ (Holland’s real-life partner, Zendaya) had to forget that Peter Parker ever existed. This development was inspired by the 2007 comic book storylines One More Day and . . . wait for it . . .
2. Why Is It Called Brand New Day?
. . . Brand New Day, in which MJ accepts a bargain from the demon Mephisto to save the life of Peter’s Aunt May in exchange for her and Peter’s marriage never having occurred. In terms of the film, Peter’s loss of his support system has made him a total loner in his personal life, but it’s also made him focus on his exploits as Spider-Man, raising his profile as a hero in New York City. This also acknowledges a trope that’s a bit of a running joke among comics fans, which is that a miserable, broke Peter Parker is the best Peter Parker. The character works even better when he has to struggle. In the film, which is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (helmer of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and the Wonder Man TV series), gone are his high-tech suit, replaced by one that he sewed himself. Gone also is the support from Stark Industries personnel like Tony Stark/Iron Man’s right-hand man, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau). This is Peter on his own. However, Spidey still has a couple of amazing friends.
3. Who Are the New Heroes and Villains?
Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Sony Pictures Entertainment)
If you’ve seen the trailer, you know that both the gun-toting vigilante The Punisher and Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk are in the film. Both have a long-running history with Spider-Man in the comic book source material.
The Punisher first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 in 1974, which was created by Gerry Conway (who, in addition to being a comics legend, wrote and produced for TV’s Law & Order franchise) and artists John Romita Sr. (renowned for his Spider-Man work) and the superlative Ross Andru. The Punisher was initially conned into being an antagonist of Spidey, but became a tenuous ally. It’s fitting that Jon Bernthal plays the Punisher in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as he and Tom Holland also have a years-long association. The pair first starred together in 2017’s Pilgrimage. During that picture’s 2015 shoot, Holland got a chance to audition for Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War just as Bernthal also had an opportunity to try out for the Punisher for the second season of Daredevil, then on Netflix. The pair shared their news with one another, and then shot each other’s audition tapes. Both men landed the roles.
As for the Hulk, he first appeared, fittingly, in The Incredible Hulk #1 in 1962. He first met Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man #14 in 1964, which spawned many subsequent team-ups. The two have served alongside each other in the Avengers both in the comics and during the Battle of Earth in Avengers: Endgame. On screen, Banner and the Hulk have been played by Mark Ruffalo since 2012, who has now chalked up appearances in all four Avengers films, Iron Man 3, Thor: Ragnarok, Captain Marvel, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and in the Disney+ TV series She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law.
There’s also a sizeable rumor that Daredevil will appear in the film. If that’s the case, it would mark the second big-screen appearance for Matt Murdock/Daredevil as played by Charlie Cox; he previously appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home as well as three seasons of the Daredevil Netflix series, episodes of Netflix’s The Defenders and She Hulk: Attorney-at-Law, and two seasons (and counting) of Daredevil: Born Again. In the comics, Daredevil and Spider-Man have been friends for years and Ol’ Hornhead maintains an uneasy relationship with the Punisher, as he doesn’t condone his methods.
On the villain side . . . it’s not totally clear. The trailer has shown glimpses of long-time comic book Spidey villains like Tombstone, Scorpion, Boomerang, Tarantula, Ramrod, and the ninja clan The Hand (who have also appeared in Marvel streaming shows), but it’s not certain who the main antagonist is.
4. Who Is Sadie Sink playing?
Though she’s only 24, Sadie Sink has been working steadily on a big canvas for years. She was in Annie on Broadway at 10 and joined the cast of Stranger Things as Max in its second season in 2017. She drew raves in the Oscar-winning The Whale as has been juggling stage, film, and television for most of her career. So when she was announced for Brand New Day in an undisclosed role, the rumor mill went crazy. To Marvel’s credit, there is still no confirmation on who she might be.
Theories include:
- Jean Grey: One of the five original X-Men from X-Men #1 in 1963, Jean has been played on screen by Famke Janssen and Sophie Turner. With Marvel’s stated intention to reboot the X-Men in a younger direction and Spider-Man’s apparent mutation that’s happening in the trailer, it’s entirely possible that they’d drop her in as a surprise to generate buzz.
- Firestar: Firestar was created for animation, first appearing in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends in 1981. Marvel moved her into the pages of the comics in 1983, first appearing in Uncanny X-Men #193 and then later joining the New Warriors, the Avengers, and the X-Men. Given the character’s Spidey connection and utility player nature, she could be Sink’s role.
- Spider-Wasp: An extremely outside possibility, but this character from a more esoteric branch of Spider-mythology has ties to the transformation aspects of spider-characters. Given the notion of Peter mutating, it could be this character, but probably not.
- May “Mayday Parker”/Spider-Girl: Given the time-travel and dimension-hopping we’re accustomed to in the MCU, it’s possible that Sink could be playing Peter and MJ’s daughter from an alternate timeline. The most popular version of this concept is Spider-Girl, who debuted in the pages of What If? in 1989 before getting her own series.
We’ll have to wait for the film to see, but Sink has jokingly confirmed in interviews that she’s not playing Spider-Man or Aunt May (who was played by Marisa Tomei and in appeared in four MCU films prior to the character’s death in No Way Home).
5. What Will All of This Mean in December?
Avengers: Doomsday trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Marvel Entertainment)
Yes, the movie comes out in July, but it will likely carry implications for the next big Marvel release, Avengers: Doomsday. In theaters December 18 (some of which are already sold out), the fifth Avengers film will unite the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four on screen for the first time. You may recall that the while Marvel Entertainment (and Disney, as of 2009) owned the character rights, the film rights were split among several studios in the 1990s. While Sony still holds the rights for Spider-Man but has co-operated regularly with the MCU/Disney since 2016, the rights for X-Men and the FF were at Fox until Disney bought that company in 2019. The subsequent COVID pandemic of 2020 and the double strikes of the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America in 2023 delayed the on-screen union. Regardless, given the rather tight continuity that Marvel films and television generally have, it’s possible that some element of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, particularly a post-credits scene, could lay the groundwork for the film that will see Robert Downey, Jr. take on the role of antagonist Doctor Victor von Doom.
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