Spider-Man: Brand New Day is absolutely blowing up at the box office, and it isn’t exactly difficult to see why.
From every possible angle, this film has been a marketing bonanza, capitalizing on the goodwill of more than a decade of Marvel Studios-affiliated Tom Holland-starring Spider-Man projects; building organically off of the buzz of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey thanks to the substantial overlap of cast members and release dates; and even building off of the social media buzz surrounding Holland and co-star Zendaya’s real-life romance and recent marriage. That’s not even to mention the go-for-broke marketing blitz that Sony ran for the film, which was equally comprehensive and insane.
The film wound up making just shy of a billion dollars worldwide in its opening weekend, shattering records and expectations in the process. The only way that a film gets to those kinds of numbers is if it literally appeals to every audience member possible. For reference, the only other films that have ever summoned up opening weekend figures even remotely close to that are things like Avengers: Endgame (where everyone wanted to see the “final” chapter of that era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (where everyone wanted to see Star Wars’ triumphant return to the big screen). And by and large, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-Man film lives up to that challenge, presenting a cinematic thrill ride that has a little something for everyone. But recently, Holland revealed that one portion of the film nearly tipped into a more horrific, possibly controversial direction.
While there’s a lot going on at any given moment within the film, the core narrative of Spider-Man: Brand New Day revolves around Peter Parker’s struggle to find balance in his external and internal lives as both a burgeoning man and a Spider-Man. In truly comic-booky fashion, this manifests in the film through the idea that his human and spider DNA are falling out of harmony with one another, leading to moments in the film where his power level raises and Peter seems to lose control. Visually, this is represented not only by his organic web-shooters but also by his eyes turning entirely black, like a spider. As it turns out, though, there were conversations about pushing these transformative visual elements even further with the addition of a comic-book staple: Man-Spider.
In the comics, Man-Spider is a mutated iteration of Spider-Man, in which his spider DNA has taken precedence over his human DNA. This results in Peter Parker essentially turning into a giant walking spider, with stingers and additional limbs jutting out of the side of his torso. Given the narrative terrain that Brand New Day covers, it isn’t exactly difficult to see how Man-Spider could have fit into the film, and Holland recently revealed to the Happy Sad Confused Podcast that there were some extensive conversations about doing full-on Man-Spider, even if only for a dream sequence. The star said, “We explored the nightmare sequences of him waking up as the Man-Spider.”
It’s worth noting that Spider-Man films have certainly delved into horror territory before, especially under the direction of Sam Raimi, whose whole deal is scaring the living shit out of audiences with a blend of gothic and wacky antics, regardless of what kind of film he’s making. The finale of Spider-Man basically takes place in a haunted house; Spider-Man 2 has a whole Evil Dead sequence starring Doctor Octopus. These things rarely pulled punches. But, for as much as Brand New Day does take influence from those Raimi films, the makers ultimately decided to shy away from going all-in on this more horrific idea.
As Holland surmised, “Very quickly we were like, 'We do want children to enjoy this movie as well as adults. You know, this is a little bit too creepy.’”
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