Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has made history. It is the first live-action Spider-Man movie to have four films. That’s right. This latest iteration of live-action Spider-Man, which started in 2017, welcomes a fourth movie. I mean, we all know it is happening, but only two days ago did we get the first official trailer.
There’s a lot to unpack in the 2:40-minute trailer. But as before, it is time to turn back if spoilers hurt you like a fork in the forehead. You have been warned.
Moving on… Spider-Man: Brand New Day picks up after the events in Spider-Man: No Way Home. If you recall, to undo the mess Peter started, he asked Doctor Strange to erase himself from everyone’s memory. The film is set four years after No Way Home, and at this point, Peter is a grown person and a lonely soul in New York City. Nobody knows that he is Spider-Man, though Spidey continues to go around kicking the butts of criminals. He is doing this full-time now, btw, and the show digs deep into his struggle, both psychologically and physiologically.
At the beginning of the trailer, we see that he is still equipped with his web-shooters. But something is happening. He is unwell, and at one point wakes up wrapped in spider webs. He falls from a tall building and realizes he is in shorts and without his web-shooters. Then he does it. The trailer teases that he might have organically fired a web string to save himself from plunging. We could be wrong. For all we know, somebody could have fired something to grab him. But later in the trailer, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man appears to do without the web-shooters.
Anyhoo, Parker realizes he is changing and pays a visit to, surprise, surprise, Doctor Bruce Banner, who is now a college professor. If you look closely, Bruce can be seen wearing a gadget on his right wrist. To understand the origin of this device, you have to go back to the She-Hulk series, in which he explained how he invented it to keep himself from becoming the Hulk.
In the trailer, you can hear a person saying that a spider has three life cycles and that in between life cycles, it is vulnerable to threats. That explains how he is unwell. This information pairs with Banner telling someone—presumably Parker—if the DNA is mutating, it would be “enormously dangerous.” So it is safe to assume Peter is evolving, perhaps growing stronger.
Stronger he appears to be—as the trailer shows Peter undergoing some high-tech scan that shows enhanced human detected, with parameters like strength, agility, senses, perception, topping the charts. But here’s the thing. That was one scene of Spider-Man going through a scan of some sort, and another showing the results. They could be unrelated and cut to throw viewers off.
And then there’s the new suit, which looks like the one Spider-Man wore in Homecoming, but with a spider logo that is more in line with the two previous Spider-Men.
It is a very exciting trailer that also introduces Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher, as well as one of Spider-Man’s archnemeses, Mac Gargan, a.k.a. Scorpion. Mac did appear briefly in Spider-Man: Homecoming as a black-market buyer arrested by the FBI. The trailer also teases another threat, one described as “cannot be seen”—possibly a mutant with the power to jump from body to body.
Spider-Man is also up against the Hand, an evil outfit from Daredevil, Iron Fist, and The Defenders. Charlie Cox will also appear in the movie as Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil—though he is not shown in the trailer. If you recall, he appeared in No Way Home as Parker’s lawyer.
In the trailer, there are a couple of scenes that give us a glimpse of a mysterious character in rugged fatigues. This must be a key character since precious seconds were devoted to this character. That brings us to Sadie Sink, who starred as Max Mayfield in the Stranger Things series. She was cast last year in this latest Spider-Man movie, though her role remains under wraps, so she could be this mysterious character. We would rather not speculate, but if you are so inclined, Games Radar has something to say.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is expected to hit theaters in July 2026. Meanwhile, here’s the trailer:
Images: Marvel.
