Spider-Man: Brand New Day Goes Practical With Stunts

Tom Holland is back in the suit — and this time, he’s doing it the old-fashioned way. Marvel has dropped a new behind-the-scenes featurette for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and it’s exactly the kind of footage that Marvel fans have been quietly desperate to see: real wires, real stunts, real chaos.

In the clip, Holland doesn’t hold back. “This is some of the best action that we’ve had in any of these movies,” he says. “And we shot the most stunts on the day in camera.” The footage backs him up — we see Spidey getting whipped around on rigging, thrown backwards into a truck, riding what appears to be an army tank through the streets, and cars exploding around him in sequences that look genuinely physical rather than stitched together in post.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton, who took over the franchise after Jon Watts departed, describes what we’re seeing as the film’s opening action sequence — so this is how Brand New Day announces itself right out of the gate. He also noted that hundreds of fans showed up on set to watch the stunts being filmed live, something he said meant a great deal to him and the entire crew.

A Fresh Start for Peter Parker

The practical emphasis makes sense given where the story picks up. Four years after the events of No Way Home, Peter Parker is living entirely alone — no Tony Stark tech, no Iron Spider suit, no one who even remembers who he is. He voluntarily erased himself from the lives of everyone he loves, and now he’s just a full-time Spider-Man in a city that doesn’t know his name. The official description promises that “the pressure sparks a surprising physical evolution that threatens his existence” as he faces one of the most powerful threats he’s ever encountered.

That stripped-down premise — which began with Peter literally sewing his own costume at a sewing machine in a crappy apartment at the end of No Way Home — makes the practical, grounded approach to the action feel like a deliberate creative statement. This isn’t the polished Avengers-era Spider-Man. This is a kid figuring it out.

Marvel also released a new poster alongside the featurette — a close-up of Holland’s face, the bottom half visible below the mask, Spider-Man’s suit filling most of the frame. Simple, striking, and a clean visual promise of what the film is going for.

Why This Matters Right Now

The timing of this featurette is pointed. Marvel’s visual effects have taken a beating from fans and critics for years, with particularly rough shots from Black Widow, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder becoming something of a running internet joke. That criticism has only deepened alongside reporting on how Marvel treats its VFX vendors — including recent fan reactions to CGI in The Punisher: One Last Kill that went viral for all the wrong reasons.

Against that backdrop, a featurette that essentially says “we built this for real” isn’t just a marketing beat — it’s a message. The footage of the tank rolling down an Edinburgh street (dressed to look like New York) with Holland on top of it is exactly the kind of image that travels. Fans on set, watching it happen in person, only adds to that.

The film’s cast is stacked: Zendaya returns as MJ, Jacob Batalon is back as Ned, Jon Bernthal reprises Frank Castle/The Punisher (whose One Last Kill special sets up some complicated dynamics heading into this film), Michael Mando is on board as Scorpion, Tramell Tillman plays Department of Damage Control boss Bill Metzger, and Mark Ruffalo appears as Bruce Banner — with strong hints he’ll also show up green.

Then there’s Sadie Sink, whose role remains officially undisclosed — though fans have been obsessively cross-referencing every behind-the-scenes detail, including a yellow jacket she was spotted wearing on set, trying to crack it. So far, Marvel’s keeping that one close.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters on July 31.