We’ve known for a while that Spider-Man could be heading back to his street-level roots (Kevin Feige telegraphing this at a previous San Diego Comic-Con when referring to the webhead’s future), but is now being revealed by the folks behind “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” that it was near impossible to go as big as having The Parkers (Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield as their iterations of Peter Parker) in “No Way Home,” allowing them to pivot toward a more intiment story, even with keeping the fantastical elments.
Longtime “Spider-Man” franchise producer Amy Pascal (also behind Denis Villeneuve‘s highly anticipated “Bond 26“) revealed to Deadline that, because of the scale of the previous installment, they were sort of forced to try something other than doing the Multiverse event film. This led them to go back to Spidey thwarting gangsters and bank robbers as a street-level hero, this time with the backing of the NYPD (felt like a nod to Batman’s relationship with Commissioner Gordon), with Liza Colón-Zayas‘ Detective Jean DeWolff being one of Parker’s only friends.
“We knew we couldn’t go bigger than three Spider-Mans, so we had to go deeper with Peter Parker … whenever we sit down to decide, to think about what the next movie should be, we always think about what the Peter Parker story should be. And it really is about focusing more on Peter than Spider-Man, which makes a good movie…The wonderful thing about Peter is he’s just a kid with no money and no girlfriend, and no game. That’s what makes him such a heroic character and such a mythic character for people, because all he is is a good guy.”
Director Destin Daniel Cretton had recently pointed out to The Wrap that it was the studio’s idea to go a little smaller from the jump: “They pitched it to me as ‘we can’t go bigger so we have to go deeper.’ They wanted to take the franchise ‘back to street level.'” A sentiment that star Tom Holland was deeply aware was a fan demand when doing his internet polling (said to be lurking on social media and nerd sites for ideas): “I combed through the internet,” he told Fandango. “The fans really wanted this street-level Spider-Man movie that felt relatable, that didn’t necessarily feel like saving the world, but maybe saving himself, and I think we’ve done that.”
Do they continue the “small potato” angle for the next installment? That’s surely something we’d hope they end up doing because these Spidey movies tend to feel a lot more satisfying when they’re forced to explore the interpersonal relationships and character beats, as it can become a nice break from action sequences (even if they were very exciting/inventive under Cretton). We’ll also keep our fingers crossed that Florence Pugh‘s Yelena Belova (the newly minted Black Widow 2.0 and key member of “The New Avengers“) returns after some fun cameos for an expected “Spider-Man 5.
Scarlett Johansson’s Nat Romanoff and Peter have teamed up on multiple occasions in the comics, but that never ended up happening on-screen as the heroine was bumped off by The Russos in “Avengers: Endgame.” We’re also hopeful they can get Charlie Cox‘s Daredevil in there down the line alongside Yelena (after all, Matt Murdock appeared in “No Way Home”). Only time will tell since it doesn’t sound like anyone went into “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” with any real idea of where a fifth film could be going, a nice break from the endless sequel bait.
