As Holland’s fourth outing as Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Brand New Day promises a rebirth for Peter Parker after the tragic loss of Aunt May and his best friends losing all memory of him. In addition to Bernthal and Holland, the film stars Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Michael Mando, Sadie Sink, and Mark Ruffalo.
Brand New Day’s first trailer, released last week, showcases the hero grappling with loneliness as Peter while being a success as Spider-Man. Additionally, it teases the Webslinger crossing paths with both Bruce Banner/Hulk (Ruffalo) and, of course, Frank Castle/Punisher.
According to Holland, the chemistry between himself and Bernthal is his favorite part of Brand New Day. The Uncharted star explained (via the Empire State Building blog): “It started as this relationship of two people that really kind of hate each other, and then as we started improvising, it became this big brother-little brother rivalry.“
“I am so excited for people to see Jon Bernthal as the Punisher in this movie,” Holland continued. He noted that though the Punisher comes from the “very different world” of the “R-rated” corner of the MCU, Brand New Day “basically picked him up and plonked him into [its] world,” adding that Bernthal “absolutely sings in this movie.”
Notably, Holland and Bernthal have been friends for many years. In fact, Bernthal assisted the younger actor in filming his audition tape for Spider-Man: Homecoming while they worked on 2017’s The Pilgrimage. Undoubtedly, their real-life friendship likely fed into the evolution of their characters’ relationship, which Holland described as his “favorite dynamic that [he’d] ever seen with Spider-Man.“
Aside from Holland, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has also weighed in on including the Punisher in Brand New Day. “We are seeing, for the first time in the Tom Holland Spider-Man stories, him being a proper Spider-Man, him being by himself dedicated to saving the city beyond and dealing with, for lack of a better term, street-level crime as opposed to world ending events,” he said. “So when you do that, you say, okay, who are the other street-level characters that we’ve never seen him interact with? And, of course, I know The Punisher started in a Spider-Man comic.”
Spider-Man: Brand New Day releases in theaters on July 31, 2026.
- Release Date
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July 31, 2026
- Director
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Destin Daniel Cretton