For a while now, Spider-Man fans have been hoping that Tom Holland’s MCU version, after messing around with galactic battles and the multiverse, may go back to his roots. “Street-level,” as it were, the friendly neighborhood version from New York teaming up with other, similarly located heroes.
Now, that finally appears to be happening with the big Spider-Man “reset,” Brand New Day.
This has been hinted at for a while now. Among other things, Marvel confirmed that Spider-Man, despite being arguably the biggest franchise hero left, will not appear in Avengers: Doomsday, as Tom Holland was not revealed in the infamous “chair name” stream. A cameo? Maybe, but a star? No.
Then, it was confirmed, surprisingly, that none other than Frank Castle, The Punisher, played by Jon Bernthal, would appear in Brand New Day. While that’s presumably a PG-13 version of the character, Punisher in NYC is about as street-level as you get.
Now, Tom Holland is talking about this pretty openly in a new interview with Flip Your Wig:
“We were really restricted with what we could do in the last movie because of COVID… Now we’re really gonna lean into that old school filmmaking & shoot in real locations… We are gonna use the streets of Glasgow for this massive set piece that we are putting together.”
There was recent reporting Holland was in Scotland for The Odyssey, the Chris Nolan film he’s leading, but that appears to have been for Spider-Man instead. In filmmaking, Glasgow is often used as a stand-in for NYC, which is easier to film in than actual NYC.
Spider-Man went deep, deep into the magic and multiversal with No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness. While it was very fun to see Toby and Andrew, returning to a more grounded version of the character is certainly welcome. The appearance of The Punisher also seems to open up some possibilities of other character collaborations like Daredevil or Jessica Jones. Johnny Storm actor Joseph Quinn from the upcoming Fantastic Four has already talked about wanting to shoot with Holland’s Spidey, and the two have a long history in the comics.
It’s not like Spidey being not street-level hasn’t worked out. No Way Home made almost two billion dollars. His appearance in Avengers: Infinity War was the most memorable moment of that film (“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good”). It does feel like this hard reset is time for a change; however, even if yes, it is confirmed that Michelle and Ned are returning for this film. But Punisher? Real-word setpieces? Sign me up.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy
