Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens in the United States on Friday, and Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal have spent the past week talking about it. Between a long sit-down with Collider and a separate conversation with Josh Horowitz, the two producers covered the Venom question, why the Punisher and the Hulk are in a Spider-Man film, and exactly where this lands on the MCU calendar. Tom Holland, meanwhile, revealed that one earlier version of the film was a cut the cast could not stand.
The Venom Question Is Still Open
Asked by Horowitz whether Tom Hardy’s Venom and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man might ever share a screen, Feige’s answer was “Always have hope.” Pascal was warmer still, saying it would be great to finally get the two together.
That is not a confirmation of anything, and a version of this exchange circulating on social media adds a punchline about having no hope that the outlets covering the interview do not report. Treat the optimistic reading as the accurate one. Pascal did confirm something concrete in the same conversation: an animated Venom film is in development at Sony, though she did not say whether Hardy would voice Eddie Brock in it. The project has had a creative team since February, when Final Destination: Bloodlines directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein were attached and Hardy signed on as a producer, as The Hollywood Reporter first revealed.
Why The Punisher And The Hulk
Feige’s explanation for bringing Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle into a Spider-Man film was thematic rather than commercial. He pointed to the pair’s history together in the comics, and noted that Bernthal and Holland’s real friendship made the pairing sit naturally.
The Hulk is the bigger deal for long-term MCU watchers. Holland’s Peter Parker and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner have technically shared a film before, in Avengers: Endgame, but never actually played a scene opposite one another. Feige has described finally putting them together as one of the things he was most excited about here, and Pascal has promised classic Spider-Man interactions with both Hulk and the Punisher.
The PlayStation Game Really Is In There
Holland said during the press run that the production tried to work finishing moves from Insomniac’s Spider-Man games into the film’s fight choreography, and that is not just an actor talking. Feige independently credited the game as a source Destin Daniel Cretton drew on, alongside the comics and some very specific comic covers, saying it fed into the film’s visual language.
Two people describing the same influence from different angles is a good sign that it is genuinely on screen rather than a press line.
The Cut The Test Audiences Asked For
Holland added an unusually candid production story in an interview with Quotable released Wednesday, sitting alongside Zendaya and Jacob Batalon. The three saw many cuts of the film during post-production, and one of them was assembled by taking every note from the test-screening audiences and changing the movie to match. When the cast watched that version, they hated it. “It totally didn’t work,” Holland said.
His point was not that the audience was wrong so much as that giving people exactly what they asked for produced a film nobody wanted, and the lessons from that experiment shaped the final edit. Holland, who spent time in the writers’ room on this one, did not specify what the discarded cut changed.
Where It Sits, And What Feige And Pascal Made Of It
The timeline question is settled. Brand New Day takes place four years after Spider-Man: No Way Home and before Avengers: Doomsday, which arrives in December. Cretton directed from a script by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Deadline reports a net production budget of $225 million, with North American presales around $80 million and a projected global opening in the $465 million range.
As for the producers’ own verdict, Pascal told Collider it was the first time she and Feige had stood up after a director’s cut and cheered. She also framed the film’s approach to New York as a deliberate correction, saying the intention was to put Spider-Man back into the city in a way the previous three Holland films had held back on.
Whether the finished film earns that is now a question for audiences rather than critics, who have landed it at a Certified Fresh 91 percent. The promotional run has been relentless for weeks, right down to a replica of Peter Parker’s apartment opening in Brooklyn.
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