Tom Holland’s return in Spider-Man: Brand New Day will feature a “tonal shift” from the actors’ first trilogy, director Destin Daniel Cretton has said.
This year’s long-awaited new Spider-Man film, Holland’s fourth, will pick up some time after the events of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, with Peter Parker’s secret identity forgotten by the wider world — separating him from past girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon). At the same time, Holland will have to deal with a new threat and team up with gun-toting Marvel TV action hero Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal).
Discussing the movie with ComicBook this week, Cretton said he had been “really excited” to take on this next chapter of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man story as there was agreement among Marvel boss Kevin Feige, Sony exec Amy Pascal, and Holland himself “to do something different.”
“Of course it’s still the Spider-Man that everybody loves,” Cretton said. “But this is a new chapter in his life, and that tonal shift was something that was really exciting to me and felt really different. It was an extremely gratifying experience.”
In the past, Feige has mentioned that Brand New Day will retain the franchise’s usual film rating — there’s no suggestion that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is suddenly getting the R-movie treatment akin to Deadpool & Wolverine — meaning that Frank Castle’s lethal antics would have to fit in.
Still, Cretton seems to be suggesting here that Brand New Day will feature a more mature tone — perhaps by the very nature of Holland’s Spider-Man no longer being a student, and forced to fend for himself without his Aunt May.
Officially, little is known of Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s story, which Marvel and Sony have attempted to keep under wraps as much as possible. Indeed, Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink has said she’s been kept wrapped up in a large coat “like a penguin” to hide her costume from fans during shooting, so mysterious is her role.
That said, we do know that Mark Ruffalo will be back as Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the movie, while Better Call Saul’s Michael Mando will reprise his role as Scorpion. A big action sequence was previously filmed in the Scottish city of Glasgow, standing in for New York, which saw Holland riding around on top of a tank.
With four trailers (that aren’t actually trailers) already released for this December’s Avengers: Doomsday, fans are hoping to see something more of Spider-Man: Brand New Day soon — ahead of its launch in theaters on July 31. Just before Christmas, what appeared to be grainy footage of an upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer hit the internet, featuring dialogue that positioned Sink’s character as a villain — initially, at least.
“You’re a mess, Spider-Man,” Sink’s unnamed character can be heard to say. “Don’t get in my way. Otherwise, it won’t just be your friends who don’t remember who Peter Parker is.” Plenty of speculation exists around who Sink may be playing, though perhaps our biggest clue is the report that her character will be returning for Avengers: Secret Wars, something that rules out her being a one-and-done villain.
Image credit: MEGA/GC Images.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social