Spider-Man 4 Gets a Title and Some Details at Cinemacon
The fourth MCU Spider-Man movie finally has a name. This week is Cinemacon, a festival where Hollywood studios present their upcoming slate of films to movie theater owners. On today’s Real BBC, Gary from Nerdrotic joked that the theater owners should be brandishing torches and pitchforks after what the garbage films Hollywood has produced over the last few years have done to their businesses. But one thing they’ll be glad to see is on the way is another Spider-Man movie because the Webslinger consistently brings them massive box office revenue – particularly his last outing, Spider-Man: No Way Home, which grossed $1.9 billion worldwide, $814,866,759 of that domestically, and that was during the COVID lockdowns when the excuse that nobody wanted to go to the movies anymore was used for every film flop. Details about the movie we’ve all been referring to as Spider-Man 4 have been scant. We know that Tom Holland will return as Spidey, of course, and Zendaya will return as Michelle (more on that later because… stuff was said), and Sadie Sink will join the cast in an undisclosed role. We also know it will be directed by Shang-Chi’s Destin Daniel Cretton (we could’ve had a Drew Goddard Spider-Man movie!) and written by the team behind the last three entries, Chris McKenna and Eric Sommer, and that it will be released on July 31, 2026.
And now… we have a title. While he couldn’t attend Cinemacon because he’s busy filming The Odyssey for Christopher Nolan, Tom Holland shot a quick video that played for the theater owners in attendance, one in which he thanked them for all their work and dropped a couple of details about the new movie, as reported by Variety. First off, he revealed the title, which will be Spider-Man: Brand New Day, breaking the “Home” pattern of the first three films. (Is “Day” going to be the new pattern? Will Brand New Day be followed by Spider-Man: One Bad Day and Spider-Man: One Day at a Time?) Holland also said that Brand New Day would pick up where No Way Home left off, with Peter Parker having asked Doctor Strange to cast a spell making the world forget who he was and web-slinging into the Christmas night as Spider-Man in a very classic-looking costume. He described Brand New Day as “a fresh start,” which makes sense considering how No Way Home ended. Director Destin Daniel Cretton was present at Cinemacon to confirm Holland’s assessment of the film, saying that it will be “the next stage” of Spider-Man’s story and that the movie he and the rest of the production team are creating is “an event, an emotional story, and a ride that we haven’t really seen before.”
While this information is fairly vague, I like what Tom Holland and Destin Daniel Cretton had to say at Cinemacon. The title of the movie comes from the comic story “Brand New Day,” which is the follow-up to “One More Day,” in which Peter Parker makes a deal with Mephisto to erase his and Mary Jane’s marriage in order to save Aunt May’s life. “Brand New Day” picks up with the new, altered continuity, where Peter and Mary Jane were never married. This was done because Joe Quesada, who was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics at the time, didn’t like that Peter and MJ were married and wanted to undo it – apparently, he didn’t care if it was done in the most contrived way possible. Fans hated it; as Gary describes in the Real BBC stream, sales for The Amazing Spider-Man were cut almost in half due to the story. In other words, a lot of fans may be none too pleased with this title for the next Spider-Man movie. But here’s the thing: No Way Home took inspiration from “One More Day,” having Spider-Man erase not just his current relationship but his friendships, essentially giving up his entire life to save the world from an incoming multiversal villain invasion. I think most would argue that No Way Home pulled off the same idea much better than the comics did because it wasn’t done as a result of someone behind the scenes having an axe to grind, and it made a lot of sense for Peter as a character. It also reset things to a normal that fans wanted, one without the multiverse and alien invasions, where Peter could be the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man we need him to be (as opposed to running around in the Iron Spider costume in his day-to-day antics). So, it doesn’t bother me that the inspiration for the next film is “Brand New Day;” it actually makes perfect sense, and when you consider that this will be a loose adaptation geared more towards the ending of No Way Home, it’s going to be the story fans wanted to see, or at least one possible version of it.
Holland and Cretton’s description of Spider-Man: Brand New Day also makes me more comfortable with Zendaya’s Michelle returning. Calling this “a fresh start” and “the next stage” of Peter’s arc makes me think that they won’t be undoing the ending of No Way Home just to keep her around because she has a lot of Instagram followers. (I’m not joking; this is an actual thing.) I’m also heartened by the addition of Sadie Sink to the cast since she will presumably be Peter’s new love interest, whether she’s Gwen Stacy or (the real) Mary Jane Watson, or someone else entirely. That would fit with what Holland and Cretton are saying about the film. Anything can happen between now and then, of course, but this sounds like the direction I wanted the Spider-Man movies to go in, and while I won’t be sold on Cretton until I see the movie (mostly because I’ve seen Shang-Chi), I’m heartened by what I’ve heard, and I’m looking forward to what I hope will be another great Spidey adventure.
Let us know what you think of the new Spider-Man title and details in the comments!
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