ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Spider-Man 4: BRAND NEW DAY Explained

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

What does the title "Brand New Day" tell us about the next Spider-Man movie? A LOT. We'll explain the comic, Spider-Man's deal with the devil, and how this all connects to Venom, Daredevil, and Avengers Doomsday and Secret Wars. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Colton Ogburn, and I was in the room for Sony's Cinemicon announcement of Spider-Man Brand New Day, the fourth installment in the Tom Holland Spider-Man franchise. This title alone has so many implications for the direction they are taking this movie. character of Spider-Man in the MCU. So we need to break down what Tom Holland and director

Destin Daniel Cretton had to say about this new Spider-Man adventure, the villains this title likely just revealed. And a little later, we will talk about how this all connects back to Venom the last dance and its ending and Venom's potential entrance into the MCU, as well as Spider-Man's obtaining of the black suit and of course how this all will lead into Avengers doomsday and Avenger's Secret Wars. So Tom Holland's brief message to us was an acknowledgement that Spider-Man No Way Home left us with a huge cliffhanger.

That being Peter's sacrifice in order to save the universe from a multiversal invasion, he asks Dr. Strange to cast a spell causing everyone to forget Peter Parker ever existed. In doing so, Peter's best friend Ned forgets him, Happy Hogan forgets him, Dr. Strange forgets him, and of course, MJ forgets him, and the two are no longer together.

Oh, hey, and speaking of forgetting things, don't forget to check out all of our marvelous Marvel parody designs up on the merch store right now, screencrushmerch.com. Shopping our merch store is a great way to help us continue to attend events like Cinemacon so that we can report exclusives like this. So anyway, Peter being single and no longer with MJ is a huge part of the brand new day comic. In that comic, Spider-Man makes a deal with the devil, or more accurately, a deal with Mephisto to save Aunt May's life.

But in exchange, he and MJ's marriage is a really. erased from history. Very similar to that of the Forget Peter Parker spell in No Way Home, where Peter wants to save his universe, just like he wanted to save Aunt May in that comic. So in both of these scenarios, we see him sacrifice his relationship with MJ. You're gonna forget who I am. What? Forget who you are? What are you talking about? It's okay. I'm gonna come and find you. Now in Spider-Man No Way Home, we also saw Peter struggling with his secret identity having

been revealed to the world in the previous film Far From Home. What this bit of the story set up in the home trilogy is also very similar to Brand New Day, where Peter is reeling from the events of Civil War where he revealed his identity to the world. Now, in Brand New Day, just like in No Way Home, we see Peter's secret identity restored via magic, but with a great cost, losing MJ. In the spell from the comics that is cast by Mephisto Marvel's Devil, the world forgets that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, And Peter and MJ, they were never married.

And if you want to get super in the weeds, we later find out that, like part of Mephisto's spell was simply that it may survive the assassination attempt ordered by Kingpin. And in this new history, it was actually Dr. Strange, Reed Richards and Tony Stark, upon Peter's request, that make it to where everyone actually forgets Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Anyway, it's essentially an in-universe reboot. An in-canon reboot. They wanted to essentially wipe the slate clean and have Spider-Man return to his roots. of being a street fighter with a secret identity and relationship problems. But they wanted to do all of this

without actually having to reboot the line from scratch, and that's exactly what we saw them do in the movie universe. In No Way Home, they wanted to keep Spider-Man as a part of the MCU, of course, but they also wanted to wipe the slate clean so he could return to more street-level adventures and have a new journey as well as leave the home trilogy and the Infinity Saga behind

and introduce a new air, of Spider-Man, new cast, and just kind of give us that in-universe reset for the character. But sticking with Spider-Man 4, Spider-Man brand-new day, I do think this could all be a great inclination that this movie will be a gritty street-level story that takes us back to the roots of the character of Spider-Man reminiscent of those early Ramey films instead of giving us another multiversal extravaganza like we saw on No Way Home, which, you know, I get that that's kind of rich, considering that we are in the multiverse saga of the MCU, and Spider-Man is definitely going to be in Secret Wars, but hey, maybe this will be a nice breather. And I would assume that whatever

they set up in brand new day, we will see that kind of continued in the new universe after Secret Wars. Again, we'll talk about that in a second. So anyway, with the title brand new day, it is clear that they were using the end of No Way Home as an opportunity to reset and maybe even shift Spider-Man out of the MCU, but do not worry, that's not happening. As you can see here on the official title card for the film, this is a Marvel Studios film. And while Spider-Man has yet to be confirmed for Avengers Dumes Day, I do think he will be confirmed later on, and we know he'll be in Secret Wars. Now, some other huge parts of Brand New Day included the resurrection and reintroduction of Harry Osborne. Now, the MCU has never had a Harry Osborne, but this will likely be the film

where we are introduced to our new Harry, the MCU Harry. And with a Harry Osborne comes a Norman Osborne. Now, personally, I kind of like the idea of Peter getting a job at Oscorp. That being when he meets Norman Osborne and befriends Harry, maybe we could even wait and just hear mentions of Norman in brand new day and then wait until the second or third film before he actually like appears in the film. But sticking with Harry, I kind of like the idea of Harry wanting his new friend Peter to meet his new girlfriend and then Peter agrees and then plot twist. The girlfriend is MJ. But hey, that's just me wanting some drums. Drama.

Now, I was just talking about Harry Osborne, Norman Osborne, and brand new day in the comics did take advantage of the fact that they could kind of reintroduce these villains, these classic villains in a new way. But one of the primary villains who does arise from these brand new day comics is Mr. Negative. Now, for those of you who aren't super familiar with the comics, you may actually still remember Mr. Negative from that first Spider-Man PS-4 game. And I have to say, it has been rumored and reported from varying levels of, credible outlets that Mr. Negative is the villain that they have been eyeballing at serving as the

main antagonist of brand new day. And with Mr. Negative could come, Kingpin and Venom. Now, let's start with Kingpin and then we'll get into Venom. With Kingpin, we could finally get that grounded, gritty street level story, Spider-Man versus Kingpin, and that Spider-Man daredevil crossover that we have been waiting for for so long. I mean, No Way Home did set things up for Peter to return to his vigilante roots. And that's what brand new day was in the comics. Peter's return to that street level crime. And we are seeing in Daredevil born again, Mayor Kingpin's vigilante task force begin to assemble. And you're not going to let some mass criminals take it away from you. And you know, one thing I've always loved about the relationship between Daredevil and Spider-Man

is Daredevil's ability to know Peter's secret identity. And while Matt Murdoch would have been included as someone who doesn't remember who Peter Parker is after that spell and No Way Home, Peter could actually tell Matt the whole story about him having been his lawyer and everything that happened in No Way Home, tell him about the spell. Matt will know that Peter is telling the truth because he can tell when people are lying. I believe you, Miss Page. So maybe this fact could break the spell. We'll just have to see. Now, here in a second, I do want to tell you all about how Tom Hardy's vener. him ties into this story. But first, I want to check in with my good friend Tommy Bechtold to get

his thoughts on this casting. All right, guys, well, now I am joined by my friend Tommy Bechtold, who is surprisingly always on break. Tommy, I wanted to get your thoughts on Spider-Man brand new day, this new title. Are you excited? Does this new title make you more excited for Spider-Man 4? And what do you think the implications are for this movie with this new title? Yeah, yeah, I got a lot of thoughts on this, but I got to get back to work pretty soon. So I'm going to make it quick. I am, I'm excited. Brand new day, you know, takes its name, borrows its name from a comic book run, but I, I personally take it as a, as kind of mortar in the bricks of this rebuilding the MCU. Spider-Man is, you know, kind of the Sonyverse. Their one tie to the MCU right now,

all other Sonyverse movies have kind of severed those ties. So in my mind, this, this brand new day is I think kind of a, you know, we've completed the first trilogy of the Tom Holland Spider-Men. The MCU itself is kind of re-soft rebooting, reforming, and I look at this as, you know, an exciting signal of change. It's a departure from the title theming of using the word home, and, you know, not to get too analytical about words, but I really think that there are a variety of possibilities that this title could mean that I look forward to, you know over the months discussing so well i i was talking about a little earlier that i think that just like with spider man homecoming yeah there there was a homecoming dance in that movie but that title was totally like about spider man coming back to marvel this being his first mccu movie so i think there is definitely more so a meta sense to this title brand new day they're trying to say

we're leaving the home trilogy behind we've got this new thing going well tommy as you mentioned brand new day is of course they're borrowing that title from a comic now in that comic we see Peter make a deal with the devil to bring back Aunt May after, I believe it's an assassination that was ordered by the kingpin. Now, we know in Spider-Man No Way home, Aunt May was killed by Green Goblin. So I'm wondering, and I want to ask you, do you think that we could see Peter make another deal with the devil, have Mephisto come into this movie? And, you know, I really love the idea of Peter, like, in his apartment, just getting back. from fighting some street crime and there's this guy in a suit standing in the corner. Hello, it's Sasha Barron Cohen.

Yes, I do want to ask you about Sasha Barron Cohen. Yes, here in a second with him being an Ironheart and all that. Yeah. I'm loving the idea of him being like, because he's the devil, so he would still like know who Peter Parker is. He knows Peter is like struggling and alone. I think that is the perfect opportunity for him to like offer him something else, like to make his life better. And maybe Peter wouldn't ask for MJ and Ned to remember him because that

would kind of undermine the sacrifice that he was willing to make so they would be safe. But I could maybe see him saying, I want my Aunt May back. I feel bad that I couldn't save her. Do you think we we see him make another deal to bring back Aunt May? I actually think that it's going to be a pivot from that. I think it's going to be that storyline, but I, I would love that because I love Marissa Tomay. She was my first crush and, and my forever crush. But I think the, mine was Sally Fields. Dude, I, I was the Sally Field, Mrs. Doubtfire, come on now. I, I was, I was a field head. I, uh, I, I, I really think that for me, the love of Peter's life in the first three movies is Ned. And I think that it's, this is going to be, he's going to make a deal to say,

Ned in some way. Like, that is the person, MJ too, obviously. I mean, the literal love of his life is MJ. But I, I think that Ned is going to be in peril. I think that's a character that they've kind of stalled out on his development. Like, Ned is kind of, I mean, granted, they gave him sorcerer powers, but like, you know, undeveloped sorcerer powers. But I feel like that is a relationship that could still be tested. Now, obviously, Ned has no idea who Peter is, but Peter still has a vested interest in him. So I would be more, I would think that they would take the bones of that storyline and just sub in a different character having, with the assumption that a long passage of time will have

occurred between Aunt May's death and when this is coming out. But I do think that, I do think that with the introduction of some of the more mysterious entities in Ironheart, this is kind of, the building blocks are being put in place for a storyline like this. Well, Tommy, you mentioned Ned. So in the comics, Ned, of course, becomes Hobgoblin. Do you think that that's a direction they might take it? I mean, what a great Faustian bargain spin. Then yes, I'll bring your friend Ned back, but he's going to be a bad guy now. You know, horror movies kind of teach us that when someone comes back, they never come back the same. There's always something a little off. You know, the Pet Cemetery

movies kind of practice that. Even in DC comics, the Lazarus Pit kind of brings whoever gets dipped in the Lazarus pit, they come back with a certain amount of anger and rage inside of them in vengeance. So, you know, a deal with the devil to me implies that there's some sort of twist, right? Like, the devil never makes a square deal. So to bring Ned back would be one thing. To bring Ned back and make him a foe to Peter Parker, to me, makes the most sense. And just so you know, with this purchase of a soul, I will also give a soul to a child in need. Yeah, yeah, I don't want that. So you're thinking, like, we'll see a scenario where Ned dies and Peter makes the deal to bring him back and then comes back as

hop-off. That would be cool. And like you said, they have gone the route of giving him mystical powers. So, I mean, they're already setting him up to perhaps be able to actually take on Spider-Man. Ooh, that would be cool. So do you think, like we were talking about with brand-new day and how it's like it's a new thing splintering off from the home trilogy. It's a fresh start. Do you think that Zendaya's MJ will be brought in eventually into this trilogy? Are we going to see Peter have a new love interest? A big part of that comic was like Peter Parker single again. I remember that was kind of how they were marketing that comic at the time. And we do have to remember, I mean, Tom Holland and Zendaya are an actual item like in the real world. So I would

think perhaps they would be interested in maybe having that continue on screen. I, you know, I'm sure that like there's obviously plans to bring her back at some point. I do think like it would show an amazing amount of restraint to not have her be in most of this movie and maybe only be in an end credit scene or in like, you know, the last third of the movie. And I think it would add to the kind of devastation of the choice that Peter had to make. I mean like he gave up pretty much everything, you know, like he everything that he cares about, every person he cares about no longer knows he exists as far as we know. And I think that if you immediately reintroduce those characters, you know, like en masse, en masse, en masse, and mass, and moss, whatever, Elon Musk.

If you introduce them all Elon Musk, uh, no, I, uh, I, I just think it kind of waters it down a little bit. However, you know, the fans of Tom Holland and Day are going to be clamoring for them to be on screen together, but they could just go see, uh, the Odyssey. Right. Um, um, I'm hoping, like, I love the character of Gwen Stacey. I love the relationship between Peter and Gwen. I might even prefer it over the Peter and MJ. I'm not sure. We know that Sadie Sink has apparently been cast in Spider-Man 4.

Some people were thinking she might be a more comic-accurate, MJ. I don't think they're going to do that. I hope they don't do that. I think that would be a fairly bad idea, but... Me too. Every Gwen Stacey that we've had, Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, that they were both redheads, like, in real life, that they made blonde. So maybe they're going to continue that theme and have Sadie Sink be a Gwen Stacy.

I also like the idea of her being Toby McGuire, Spider-Man's daughter, like, if they go the multiverse route. But I say all this because I'm kind of hoping, even though I enjoy the relationship between Gwen and Peter, I don't want them, I don't think I want them to introduce that and have Peter have, like, a new love interest because that would be such a serious relationship there. and then, like, you would have to have her killed off in order for him to go back to MJ and all that. I feel like that would be kind of messy.

I think I would prefer to see Peter, because I'm viewing this kind of as Peter's college years, his early adult years when he gets a little wild, and you might know where I'm going with this. I think this is where you bring in Black Cat. Yes. A fling. A West Tom Holland with some city swing years.

A web flinger. He's got to sow some wild oats, baby. Yes. And what better, I mean, listen, he's already, he's already set up to be promiscuous. He's anonymous, right? No one knows who the hell he is. He's got no backstory.

He can go out there and sling it around a bit, I think. And I think a lower stakes love interest and him seeking comfort in somebody when he has no one to turn to makes a lot more sense than an in-depth romance. When we all, in our heart of hearts, they're fans of this franchise, want him to end back up with MJ someday, right? Like down the road. So the only other thing I just want to add to this. Sadie Singh thing is the brand new day thing to me brought up the possibility of a brand new Peter Parker. And, you know, we're in this multiverse saga right now.

It is perhaps brand new day the merging of like dueling Peter Parker's to set up for secret wars where it's like there'll be variants of Spider-Man. Like, is it going to be Tom Holland playing another Peter Parker from another universe, maybe the Fantastic Four universe, and kind of sewing some more threads and sewing some more patches together of these different multiverses in order to kind of facilitate what I said earlier it could be the mortar of the secret wars and the multiversal saga could this movie kind of act as a like as a as a like an adhesive to kind of bridge the gap between doomsday and and uh secret wars in a way that like introduces some multiversal spider man but rather than being

Toby McGuire and Andrew Garfield what if it's just Tom Holland a brand new Peter Parker I hope not I love the I love the enthusiasm I love the theory I mean I just say possibility yeah totally a possibility as as America's favorite rapper

Drake said no new friends that should have been the the name of the new movie Spider-Man no new friends you make a good point though we are in the multiverse saga you would think like I yes I was with Ryan and everybody

on saying yeah, I'd like to see a street-level Spider-Man 4, but we do have to remember this movie comes out between Doomsday and Secret Wars and the Multiverse saga. I think there's plenty of time to do that street-level movie later on, so I wouldn't have been upset if they went the more multiversal route, brought back Andrew, brought back Toby. You mentioned a little earlier, Tommy, and speaking of, like, the Multiverse Saga, one thing the Multiverse Saga, I think, has really introduced well is, like, the dark magic kind of stuff in the MCU like we've seen with Wanda Vision

and then especially with Agatha and like you said earlier we have Sasha Baron Cohen confirmed to be portraying Mephisto in Ironheart I'm really liking the idea of also having him portray Mephisto in brand new day

so what do you think about that? I'm all for it. I think that I mean I think he's the perfect person to bring a kind of complicated character to adapt to live action to life. Like, I mean, this is like the devil, but he's the devil of a hell that exists as a pocket dimension. It's not like Christian hell or something like that, you know.

And it's like, and he basically takes on the like, you know, the mannerisms and traits of the devil. He makes deals with people that are ultimately going to doom them, right? And no pun intended on the doom part. But like, I think, I think that he is a fantastic actor for that. Like, we've seen him be a good dramatic actor. We've seen him be an outrageously funny, expressive comedic actor, character actor. He's physically a tall, slender man, like him in like a suit, you know, looking all Mephisto-like, I think is a really, it's going to be a cool image on screen.

It's going to be a great, what do they call it, a sideshow collectible statue someday as well. I'm already, you know, I'm always thinking about branding, Colton. You know that. For me, it's dollar signs before box office. before creative expression. It's dollar signs, cash rules everything around me. But I just... Cash is king.

Cash is king with me. I think Sasha Baron Kohn is a home run casting for Ironheart. And I think that I would imagine, if you're getting him to commit to doing one Marvel project, you're probably getting him to commit to three or four. So what a, but also, what a cool resume to be like, I did Ironheart and then I did the Spider-Man movie. Like, they didn't even make him sit around for a secret invasion.

or something like that they're treating it well and you know another thing that this whole theme of deal with the devil makes me think of and we know that movies they tend to take various versions of comics and kind of mash them into one i i think when you talk about peter parker his darker half still growing up playing with you know this deal with the devil type theme i think that brings in the black suit that brings in the symbia that brings in venom and that's why i want to talk about how I think Venom the Last Dance and its ending actually ties in to Spider-Man brand new day. Tommy, thanks so much for joining me. I think you need to get back to work, man. Yeah, oh, shoot, I'm running late. Oh, my God, I got to go, guys. Thank you.

So, like I said, this announcement was made at the Sony presentation at CinemaCon, not the Marvel Studios presentation, because, of course, Sony is still the owner of the character, at least his film rights. But they are collaborating with Marvel Studios. And the only reason I bring whole of this up is because I do think that this title, Brand New Day, could be teasing the long-awaited meeting between Tom Holland's Spider-Man and Tom Hardy's Venom. During this brand-new-day era of the comics, we saw Eddie Bragg become separated from Venom, which is exactly what happened at the end of Venom the Last Dance. I won't forget you, buddy. Now, in the comics, Eddie is even embarking on essentially this new lease on life, free from his days as the lethal protector. And again,

that's what we saw in Venom the Last Dance. Now, in the comics, Eddie goes on to get a job at a soup kitchen, and that soup kitchen is owned by Mr. Negative. And when Eddie is exposed to Mr. Negative's electric energy, residual symbiote that is left behind in Eddie's body from all of those years that he and Venom were together, that then mutates into a new white symbiate called Anti-Venum. So could we see Eddie Bragg become anti-Venom?

Could we see Peter Parker? maybe become anti-venom. I mean, I think it was kind of teased that Peter will be getting the black suit, but then that was kind of recond of Venom the Last Dance. I think maybe Peter would get it in Secret Wars since that happens in the comics. We'll just have to see. But there are a lot of hurdles that they would need to jump over, such as, you know, first off, bringing Eddie Brock over into the MCU. But I really do think that we might see this storyline happen in brand new day or in the second our third film of this new trilogy. And with those other two films that are a part of this new trilogy that is starting with Brand New Day, those other two will come out after Secret

Wars. So perhaps we could see Eddie brought into the MCU following the big in-universe or in-multiverse reboot that Secret Wars will bring us into when the multiverse ultimately likely collapses probably at the end of Avengers Doomsday. Then we'll get Avengers Secret Wars, which will probably be on Battleworld, which is like probably going to be the void that we see in Loki and Deadpool and Wolverine, and then we'll likely see perhaps Wanda Maximoff, Scarlet Witch, take the place of Franklin Richards or maybe joint forces with the young Franklin Richards and see them use their reality manipulation powers to create a new cohesive universe that will culminate several universes into one, which could bring Eddie Brock into the MCU.

And then, of course, that's when we can see some other parts of the brand new day arc from the comics explored in this new trilogy of films and in this new MCU. So, brand new day and how it's kind of a in-universe reboot could just be a little tease for what we are ultimately getting with Doomsday and Secret Wars. And hey, speaking of this new trilogy of Spider-Man films, I do want to take a second to talk about the theme, kind of the meta-nature of this title. Remember, Spider-Man Homecoming did, of course, feature a homecoming dance, but the title was totally in reference to the fact that Spider-Man was joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe where he belongs, a homecoming, if you will. And that's exactly what this title is telling us as well with Brand New Day. This story is a beginning. This is a new era of Spider-Man stories, a new cast, new villains,

and a new take on Peter Parker as he makes his way into adulthood. So, guys, let me know. Do you like this new title for Spider-Man for Brand New Day? What are your thoughts and theories after this big reveal? Let me know down in the comments below or you can gnat me on Twitter or find me on our Discord. If you were new here, please be sure to subscribe, smash that bell for alerts. We will have more CinemaCon coverage for you here on the channel throughout the week. For Screen Crush, I'm Colton Ogren.