Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has scrapped with the Avengers, fought high-tech criminals, and helped save the world from a purple alien. But his greatest battle? The coronavirus. Amid the pandemic in 2020, Sony Pictures shifted Spider-Man: No Way Home from its July 2021 release date to November 2021, then pushed back production from summer to later in the year. When principal photography got underway on sound stages in Atlanta, a number of strict COVID protocols were in place that affected filming and postproduction. (In one example, Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman and Rhys Ifans’ Lizard had relatively small roles, mostly comprised of reused footage from 2007’s Spider-Man 3 and 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man.)
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Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is being helmed by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton, is gearing up for a summer shoot in Glasgow, Scotland. The addition of Jon Bernthal’s Punisher suggests a more street-level Spidey story — one that will return to practical locations, Holland revealed in a new interview.
“I’m obviously over the moon and so excited. Playing Spider-Man is like hanging out with an old pal, and I think we were really restricted with what we could do in the last movie because of COVID. We shot the entire film on stages,” Holland told Flip Your Wig of No Way Home. “Now, we’re really gonna lean into that old-school filmmaking and shoot in real locations, which is why we’re starting in Glasgow.”
Holland teased that the streets of Glasgow, which also doubled for parts of Gotham City in 2022’s The Batman, is where Brand New Day will film a “massive set piece.” Marvel filmed parts of 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War in Glasgow, as did Sony’s Kraven the Hunter.
“It’s gonna feel like making [Spider-Man: Homecoming] again. It’s been such a long time that I’ve done it that it’s gonna feel like a breath of fresh air,” Holland added of his 2017 trilogy starter, which filmed in and around Atlanta as a stand-in for New York City. “And I think the fans are gonna be over the moon with what we’re putting together.”
Sadie Sink (Stranger Things) and Liza Colón-Zayas (The Bear) are reported to be joining the MCU in undisclosed roles, while Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy co-stars Zendaya and Jacob Batalon are reprising their roles as Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson and Ned Leeds, respectively.
Bernthal, who first appeared as vigilante Frank Castle on season 2 of Daredevil in 2016 before headlining two seasons of his spinoff series The Punisher, returned to the MCU in this year’s Daredevil: Born Again. Brand New Day will mark Bernthal’s feature debut as the character who first appeared in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #129 in 1974.
Spider-Man: No Way Home made $1.92 billion when it swung into theaters in December 2021, but the COVID-stricken production was so taxing that director Jon Watts dropped out of The Fantastic Four: First Steps movie.
In June, Watts explained he was “out of gas” and that “the emotional strain of having to go through all of those COVID protocols while also trying to make something creative while also trying to make sure that your cast and crew were all safe — literally, people could’ve died if you did things wrong — that and the postproduction process was very difficult.”
“When you’re doing [visual effects work], there’s a whole international component to it where you’re using vendors from all over the world, and the supply chain had been interrupted because of COVID. It was really hard to get effects done in a traditional way,” Watts said of No Way Home at the Mediterrane Film Festival.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is scheduled to open in theaters July 31, 2026.
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Image courtesy of Lionsgate
