'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' trailer: Uh... why is the Hulk in this?
'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' trailer: Uh... why is the Hulk in this?
Cory Woodroof, For The Win Wed, June 17, 2026 at 8:06 PM UTC
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'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' trailer: Uh... why is the Hulk in this?
In a perfect world, filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton would be building on the brilliance of his 2013 masterpiece Short Term 12 as an independent auteur titan that studies the delicate balance of tragedy and beauty for the human condition on film.
We didn't get that reality. Instead, Cretton is trapped in the web of Marvel studio filmmaking with the latest Spider-Man movie that also featured the Hulk, the Punisher and probably Jean Grey from the X-Men for some reason.
Tom Holland apparently got inspired by Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey to make this Spider-Man like an actual movie instead of a two-hour quippy vessel for a post-credit sequence. To this film's credit, getting Challengers scribe Justin Kuritzkes on board to force the Community dweebs to focus on actual characterization and not just throwaway Troy and Abed jokes is a promising start, as is crossing your fingers tightly that Cretton can tap into his Short Term 12 bona fides to at least give this some thematic resonance the MCU has been sorely lacking for years.
Look, this movie looks like it has 500 villains, including ninjas for some reason, and that Spidey is cribbing on the "Peter Parker-with-alien-symbiote" arc of darkness without actually plunging the classic red suit Vemom-black. Maybe this will be fun, like the other Holland Spider-Man movies were. However, why are the Hulk, the Punisher and, most likely, a major X-Men character in this? Can't we just do Spider-Man fighting some bad guys and call it a day?
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Well, this is the MCU, buddy, so Parker never gets to just call NYC his. The glut of a moribund cinematic universe that wheezes in relevance and bloat still weights heavily on Holland's Spidey; there's no wonder the best material in all of these movies has come out of jerking the MCU-ness away and just keeping the focus on the title character. However, if this movie requires us to have even seen one second of MCU television, we're calling the imaginary feds.
Blessedly, it doesn't look like this Spider-Man adventure has Parker using the resources of a billionaire to save the day; just, this time, a former Avenger who... probably also has unlimited resources because he's an Avenger and oh why am I still writing this, this movie is going to make more money in an hour than I'll ever see in my entire life. I'll show up and see it just like everyone else while everyone involved dives into a pool of cash like Scrooge McDuck.
We're sure this will be fine; it will make more dough than any other movie this summer not involving talking toys. Maybe this inspires Cretton to go back to making real movies again and fulfilling that gigantic promise that Short Term 12 showed all those years ago. Maybe all roads really do just lead to Spider-Man at this point. Fly, web, fly.
So, when does it come out?
Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits theaters on July 31; the elite Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy is available to watch right now.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' trailer: Uh... why is the Hulk in this?
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
