No amount of pro-Israel statement-making from Avi Arad, former Marvel chief and contractually obligated forever-producer of Spider-Man media, is enough to deter the webslinger’s horde of fans from making sure that Spider-Man: Brand New Day reaches nearly a billion dollars ($938 million to be exact) during its first weekend at theatres worldwide.

Heck, even Pakistan, the very pro-Palestine state, helped with a staggering Rs25 crores in the three-day debut. That’s more than most successful films’ business in their lifetime here. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), in comparison, made Rs20 crores in 10 days, and Rs34 crores in its entire run.

After The Odyssey’s Rs5.83 crores weekend debut — and its $922 million worldwide gross — at least according to the latest accounts — who says cinema is dead? Especially when the year ends with the pre-destined blockbuster Avengers: Doomsday, where Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Robert Downey Jr are presumably returning for one final bow. And of course, as we’ve known and now see from the post-credit scene, “Spider-Man will return” as a part of Avengers.

Few can argue that Spidey’s narrative dependencies are tightly webbed into the tapestry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). When you look past the hype of interconnectivity and marquee cameos, one needn’t even squint to see that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies have one slowly developing angle and one absolute consistency: the personal growth of a teenager and his dependence on other heroes.

Spider-Man:Brand New Day delivers exhilarating action and heartfelt emotion but, despite its strengths, functions more as a bridge to Marvel’s next chapter than as a truly standalone Spider-Man story

In Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Peter Parker wants to grow up but learns that he must first be a local hero to make a difference. In Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), he struggles to live up to the memory of Tony Stark and looks for a new mentor to trust. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, he tries to fix his problems with a magic spell. In every movie, Peter is reliant on an Avenger — be it Stark, Doctor Strange, magical incantations or tech.

In Spider-Man: Brand New Day — the title is inspired by the titular comic book arc — there was an opportunity to web-up some of the baggage on a ledge for a rainy day.

At the end of No Way Home, Peter, with a fresh start on his freshly wiped identity, was set free from overbearing Stark-tech, fan-servicing and money-making crossovers by uniting all three Spider-Man actors in a grand finale. Liberated, he finally swings over New York like in the comic books, the way he was always meant to.

When Brand New Day opens, he is already New York’s friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler, helping the local police take down bad guys (Liza Colón-Zayas plays detective Jean DeWolff, and villains Tombstone, Boomerang and Tarantula get one or two shots each).

Most of this backstory is dumped in a montage of changing seasons, where we also see him regularly visiting his late Aunt May’s grave, and watching Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) and Michelle Jones Watson — MJ (Zendaya) — via their social media feeds.

Peter also has headaches and pretty soon finds himself webbed up in the air. His body is evolving, but not in the way any comic book fan expects (no six-armed arachnid mutations here). However, his actions are aggressive.

Peter seeks Dr Bruce Banner’s (Mark Ruffalo) help to curb this new persona, while a new villain hacks into people’s consciousness, jumping from one body to the next, in search of a location called V-Max.

While not exactly shoehorned, Peter’s dual-personality arc has minor echoes of the Hulk’s own destructive, out-of-control inner demons. Thus, in a way, the Hulk’s long shadow falls squarely on a Spider-Man picture — in one action scene in the climax, quite literally. Other Marvel side-characters are Yelena Belova’s Black Widow (Florence Pugh) from the ‘New Avengers’ (last seen in Thunderbolts) and the Punisher (Jon Bernthal).

Bernthal’s Frank Castle, in an expanded and thoroughly compelling role, is the film’s moral counterweight. By the third act, you’re rooting for the Punisher as fervently as you’re rooting for Peter. That is either a great compliment to Bernthal, or a damning observation about the thinness of Spider-Man’s emotional arc.

Strip away the Avengers, the Banner tech, the Punisher’s gunfire, and what remains of Brand New Day’s story? Two beats in a two-and-a-half-hour movie!

The first is Peter’s gradual maturation — his acceptance of himself despite what his evolving genome has done, or tried to do to him. The second: mustering the courage to ask his friends to simply remember him and allowing himself, finally, not to carry the burden alone.

These are meaningful moments, sure — and a good anchor to the plot — but then, what is the plot itself and where are the villains?

Consider Tobey Maguire’s trilogy, or even Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Each had rich plots and tonnes of forward-driving conflict.

In Brand New Day, the known Spider-Man villains are the Scorpion (Michael Mando) and the ninja-assassin group the Hand, in a capacity so minor they both barely register as a footnote.

The real antagonist is — spoiler alert! — Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), an X-Men. A character whose presence, however effectively deployed, functions less as a narrative endpoint and more as a junction. It is a throughline that routes traffic towards Avengers: Doomsday and the incoming X-Men integration. The post-credits scene confirms what the story barely (if at all) disguises — that Holland’s fourth solo film as Spider-Man is a mere relay point without a destination.

None of this makes Brand New Day a bad film. Far from it. There is no question about the production values or the allure of Michael Giacchino’s theme and score. The web-slinging sequences are among the finest committed to a Marvel production. The emotions move you, particularly in the quieter moments, and Holland remains one of the most instinctively sympathetic actors working in the superhero genre.

However, cinema, at its core, is measured by what a film accomplishes. Brand New Day accomplishes the following: it tugs at your heartstrings in ways better than Homecoming and Far From Home, delivers action sequences worth the IMAX premium (at least, I hope it does — we don’t have the IMAX luxury in Pakistan), and deposits Spider-Man tidily into the Marvel machine’s next cycle.

What it does not accomplish is a solo Spider-Man story. Not in the way the name on the poster promises.

Released by Sony Pictures and HKC, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, is rated U and suitable for everyone.

That is why everyone is headed to the cinemas

The writer is Icon’s primary film reviewer

Published in Dawn, ICON, August 9th, 2026