Why Spider-Man: Brand New Day was made to be a ‘superperson’ film

Almost five years ago, Spider-Man: No Way Home swung into cinemas in the teeth of a Covid-19 surge, drove cooped-up film-goers to cinemas and opened to one of the biggest US debuts on record, pulling in US$260 million in December 2021. This weekend, Peter Parker is back – a little older, more world-weary and facing a far less forgiving market. Annual box office revenue for superhero films in 2026 is expected to be down around US$3.5 billion from the heady pre-pandemic years of 2017 to 2019, on average – roughly a 50 per cent fall – according to data from the FranchiseRe industry newsletter. Sony Pictures is betting that more real-world stunts, a relatable narrative and Spidey’s lasting popularity are enough to put Spider-Man: Brand New Day on the other side of that trend. Whatever the approach, the commercial appetite is there. Pre-sales for the film, which stars Tom Holland and Zendaya, have been robust, and industry tracking estimates an opening weekend haul of at least US$195 million in the US and Canada. The film cost about US$225 million to make. “This movie takes a grounded, emotional approach to the story, and I actually believe that’s what audiences are hungry for,” says Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony’s motion picture group. “It’s got all the whizz-bang-wow visuals. But at its heart, it’s more a superperson movie, if you will, than a superhero movie.” Brand New Day picks up where the last film left off. A spell has erased Peter Parker from the world’s memory – the price of undoing the public exposure of his identity – leaving him a stranger to his best friend Ned (played by Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya). He pours himself into his crime-fighting work to stave off his loneliness. That feeling of being adrift without knowing where to turn is what the filmmakers built the film around. “We’re all really isolated from each other,” says Amy Pascal, one of the film’s producers who has worked on all four films in the Tom Holland franchise. “That kind of longing for connection between people and not knowing how to make it happen, and living in a world where we become more remote, matched the moment that people are going through.” Peter Parker’s isolation is what drew director Destin Daniel Cretton, who made 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and was an executive producer on the Marvel Television series Wonder Man. He related to the pain and tragedy the character goes through, and to the idea of a superhero story that felt like it was happening in a real place. Cretton’s insistence on real locations had an argument behind it. At a moment when audiences want to know what goes into filmmaking and are increasingly unsure whether the images they are looking at were generated by AI, the answer is visible labour. “Right now, more than ever, I think it’s important for audiences to really feel that people made the thing that they’re watching, and people went through an experience to make the thing they’re watching,” says Cretton, who grew up watching behind-the-scenes segments on his favourite DVDs. “All of that, I think, is just as important as the thing that they’re watching.” Effects alone do not carry a superhero film – or any film, for that matter – any more, Cretton says. “The action can be great, the [visual effects] can be fantastic, the explosions can be huge, but if there isn’t some type of emotional spine that connects with people where they are and what they’re going through, it’s just another big, explosive movie,” he says. Many of Marvel’s newer films have not come close to the heights earlier films once cleared. Meanwhile, this year, movies like Amazon MGM Studios’ Masters of the Universe and Warner Bros and DC Studios’ Supergirl have underperformed at the box office. The reason is contested. “I don’t think it’s fatigue of the genre,” Rothman says. “I think it’s the audience wanting new things and less predictability.” For Marvel, long treated as the genre’s gold standard, part of the problem was volume; a dense web of interconnected films and TV shows that made casual viewers feel like they had too much homework to do before a new premiere. What is clear now, especially for studio bosses, is that Spider-Man, which remains one of the most commercially durable characters in the genre, cannot fail. With Disney and Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday arriving at the end of the year, Brand New Day has to leave audiences wanting more. “It’s got a lot riding on it,” says Steve Granelli, a teaching professor and division head of communication studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. “Not just in terms of this being yet another Spider-Man film, but also this being a huge storytelling device in the larger [Marvel franchise].” That is the tension at the centre of the pitch. The filmmaking team went internal on purpose, and built a movie about a young man nobody remembers. But it also has to set up the largest external event on Marvel’s calendar.

Why Spider-Man: Brand New Day was made to be a ‘superperson’ film

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}With Marvel trying to regain its pre-pandemic box office figures, the latest Spider-Man film concentrates more on human emotions than action

With Marvel trying to regain its pre-pandemic box office figures, the latest Spider-Man film concentrates more on human emotions than action