We’ve got an official trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the follow-up to 2021’s No Way Home that is purportedly intended to launch a fresh trilogy of films with Tom Holland in the title role. Sony Pictures opted for a unique approach to building anticipation for the trailer, releasing snippets of footage throughout the day yesterday via the social media accounts of influencers and fans around the world. To which we can only say: Just stop already. Release the dang trailer and be done with it. A movie trailer should be able to stand on its own without an extra layer of cheap marketing gimmicks—and this one does.
(Spoilers for No Way Home below.)
I didn’t love No Way Home, although it was entertaining and enjoyable, and it was fun seeing all the other incarnations of Spider-Man across the multiverse make cameos. Story-wise, though, it was the weakest of the Holland Spidey films. But it made nearly $2 billion worldwide, so clearly I was in the minority. While Holland himself has wondered how long it will be before he ages out of the role, he still has the box office juice. So a fourth film, as part of the MCU’s Phase Six, made sense—especially since No Way Home ended on a pretty bleak note, with Peter asking Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to erase him from everyone’s memory to protect the multiverse, including MJ (Zendaya).
Brand New Day is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings). Per the official synopsis:
Four years have passed since the events of No Way Home, and Peter is now an adult living entirely alone, having voluntarily erased himself from the lives and memories of those he loves. Crime-fighting in a New York that no longer knows his name, he’s devoted himself entirely to protecting his city—a full-time Spider-Man—but as the demands on him intensify, the pressure sparks a surprising physical evolution that threatens his existence, even as a strange new pattern of crimes gives rise to one of the most powerful threats he has ever faced.
Naturally, Holland is reprising his role as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, along with Zendaya as MJ and Jacob Batalon as Peter’s former bestie Ned Leeds. The film also features Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/Punisher, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, Michael Mando as Mac Gargan/Scorpion (captured by Spider-Man in Homecoming), Marvin Jones III as albino crime lord Lonnie Lincoln/Tombstone, and Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil (briefly Peter’s lawyer in No Way Home). Sadie Sink, Liza Colon-Zayas, and Trammel Tillman join the case in as-yet-undisclosed roles.
