Eyes up, True Believers — fresh Spidey news swinging through! After what has been a pretty hyped past week or so for Spider-Man fans — one in which we’ve gotten our first look at Tom Holland’s fresh Brand New Day Spidey suit, learned that Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk is set for the MCU movie, and had confirmation of a new Spider-Punk film coming from Spider-Verse maestros Sony Pictures Animation — this Sunday has brought with it a new ‘Day One on Set’ behind the scenes teaser fresh from Destin Daniel Cretton’s Glasgow shoot. And with it potentially comes a vital clue as to some of the villains Marvel’s wall crawler will be facing off against. Check it out below;
We’ll get into the awesome (not to mention incredibly wholesome) sight of Holland suited up and hanging with pint-sized Spidey stans in just a moment, but freeze-frame at 9 seconds into the above — or look at the image below — and you’ll see something very interesting: a red, horned insignia on an armoured tank that very closely resembles a demon mask. At this point, anyone who’s played Insomniac’s Spider-Man games will doubtless be shouting at the screen, because this particular insignia (or at least one incredibly similar) belongs to the Inner Demons, a criminal gang under the control of none other than Martin Li — aka supervillain Mr. Negative — a foe long-rumoured to be heading for the MCU.
Now, it’s worth stressing that could just be an innocuous detail, a throwaway easter egg for diehard fans to glom onto; after all, Brand New Day already has the returns of Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, the aforementioned Hulk, and Michael Mando’s Scorpion to contend with, as well as the task of bringing in a fistful of new faces (Sadie Sink, Liza Colón-Zayas, Melanie Scrofano). But it could also be part of a drip-feed approach to setting up Li’s presence in the movie, which would make sense if we’re A) Getting a street-level Spidey joint set in a New York that — per Daredevil Born Again‘s finale — is now under one Wilson Fisk’s control, and/or B) Getting a street-level Spidey joint that may finally bring villainous supergroup The Sinister Six to our screens. (In Insomniac’s game, Mr. Negative is second-in-command of the Six.) At the same time, the logo could be a nod to another criminal faction (The Hand, for example), or somehow tie in to Frank Castle and his much spoken of ‘upgrade’ for this movie, or — again — simply just be a cool thing to see and giddily speculate upon.
As well as the potential Mr. Negative connection being teased here though, what this latest Brand New Day tidbit also delivers is a whole lotta good vibes. We’re getting Spidey acrobatically swinging on actual, practically achieved webs; Holland popping tank hatches off under actual sunlight, on real streets; and a clear sense from Spidey newcomer Cretton and his star that they’re putting the Friendly Neighbourhood in ‘Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man’ front and centre of Holland’s fourth solo outing. If the thick-webbed suit with its long-legged spider and long body wasn’t already giving us major Andrew Garfield Spidey flashbacks, then seeing Tom Holland hoist a young fan over the barrier in Glasgow for a pose and a shot together certainly is. As the actor himself says in the video, “It’s the first time we’ve ever had fans on set for day one, so it’s really exciting to share this with them.”
We may not yet know the plot of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. We may not yet know who the new cast members are playing. And the actual characters in the film may not even remember who Spidey actually is any more (the world-changing events of No Way Home are sure to have a big role to play here). But with Spider-Man: Brand New Day set to swing into cinemas on 31 July, 2026 and the buzz around the movie already reaching unprecedented levels of “We’re so back!”, consider us locked in for whatever Destin Daniel Cretton and co are about to thwip our way.
