Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a record-setting box office smash, earning over $2 billion worldwide in just 20 days. That’s fantastic news for Sony and Marvel Studios, who now have much-needed confirmation that both Spider-Man and the Marvel Cinematic Universe still have the brand appeal they used to. However, the biggest win for the filmmakers behind Brand New Day (director Destin Daniel Cretton, franchise star Tom Holland) is that Marvel fans and casual moviegoers alike are all walking away buzzing about the action scenes; some are even calling it the best Spider-Man action that’s ever been put to screen.
Videos by ComicBook.com
ComicBook.com was fortunate enough to get to speak with some of the creative team behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day – specifically Peng Zhang, the 2nd Unit Director and Supervising Stunt Coordinator on the film. We asked about everything from which fight was the toughest to film to why they insist on putting Tom Holland through more rigorous stunt demands than most stars would risk.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s Most Challenging Fight Was Martial Arts Mayhem
According to Peng Zhang, out of all the action sequences in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (and boy, there were some spectacular ones!), the hardest one to film was the climactic battle between Peter Parker/Spider-Man and The Hand ninja clan, in the detention level of the Department of Damage Control facility. Peter finally resolves his identity crisis, embracing that he is both Peter and Spider-Man in equal measure. It’s a well-timed revelation, as The Hand and some Damage Control agents had nearly beaten Spider-Man to death beforehand. A fully powered Spider-Man takes out the agents and ninjas with awe-inspiring skill, and the sequence is already being hailed as a classic.
“I have to say what gave me the most trouble is the end fight with the ninjas,” Peng Zhang explained. “The reason is we chose to shoot the sequence in a real location, which is a prison. They don’t use it anymore. So we’re shooting there. It gave us a big challenge of how we’re going to do all that wire work because everything there is concrete and steel. It’s not like in a stage [where] you can set up a wire, pick a point, and you can easily move your camera, but everything you saw in the movie is actually there. It’s nothing CGI, and it’s actually not a set. Everything’s real: steel bars and concrete for us to pull off those moves. It’s difficult enough on a stage, then when you go there: all the wirework is the people pulling the wire. They cannot even see the person. They are somewhere else. So it was so complicated to put that sequence together. But luckily we’ve done it.”
Tom Holland is Why Spider-Man Action Is Only Getting Better
The average fan might be surprised to learn how many Spider-Man movie stunts Tom Holland actually performs. The actor is famous for using his training in gymnastics and acrobatics to perform real backflips as part of his performance (starting from his very first audition at Marvel Studios); it tracks that he would be more courageous about performing the stuntwork than most other actors. According to Zhang, it’s a treasured attribute that allows Holland to create some of the best Spider-Man action there is.
“This one is quite special because when he [Tom] performs in the action, even with the mask on, you really feel how he acts in the suit with the action. So we actually really benefit from what Tom can do. We design something because Tom is so good, we don’t really hold back. It’s not, ‘Okay, this is Tom. Let’s design something easy.’ The things in the action we do with him are always the same as his stunt double or the same as everybody else. We set the bar pretty high. And he actually didn’t have a lot of time to train, but he can always do it. It’s our luck to have an actor who can physically do stuff like this.”
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now in theaters.
More Movies
-
Maul With Saber Drawn -
Image courtesy of New Line Cinema
