Spider-Man has spent more than two decades swinging across movie screens, but bringing the web-slinger to life is rarely as straightforward as it looks.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day sees Tom Holland return as the arachnid superhero for the first time since 2021’s multiverse epicNo Way Home. Zendaya and Jacob Batalon are also back, while Stranger Things breakout Sadie Sink makes her Marvel debut.
As with every Spider-Man movie, much of the production was shrouded in secrecy, leaving fans to scour set photos and <a href="https://cinemamix360.com/2026/08/04/teaser-trailer-bad-lieutenant-tokyo/” title=”Teaser Trailer: "Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo"”>trailers for clues about Peter Parker’s next chapter.
Now, with Brand New Day out in theaters and enjoying a record start at the box office, the cast and crew are revealing what went into making the latest blockbuster. Yahoo rounded up some of the most surprising behind-the-scenes facts about how Brand New Day was brought to the big screen, from painful stunts to giant Hulk hands.
Tom Holland was injured on set
Spider-Man has survived battles with everyone from the Green Goblin to Thanos, but Holland suffered a real injury while making Brand New Day.
Filming was halted in September 2025 after he sustained a mild concussion while performing a stunt at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in the U.K.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and Variety, the actor hit his head during the stunt and was taken to a hospital as a precaution. No one else was injured, and Holland took several days off before returning to set.
The trick behind Spider-Man’s Hulk fight
Spider-Man’s showdown with the Hulk, glimpsed in the movie’s trailer, looked a lot less intimidating behind the scenes.
Unlike Holland, Mark Ruffalo doesn’t wear a superhero suit on set. Instead, he performs Bruce Banner’s green alter ego in a motion-capture suit, with visual effects artists later transforming him into the Hulk.
“I remember standing on an apple box, and Mark would be holding this gigantic Hulk hand, and I’m pretending that it’s choking me,” Holland recalled during a press conference.
The actor said the scene required “full commitment,” despite the “peculiar” setup.
Sadie Sink was trusted with Marvel’s biggest secret
Marvel is famous for keeping secrets, but Sadie Sink didn’t even get to read the Spider-Man: Brand New Day script before signing on.
The Stranger Things star joined the Marvel universe in a role that remained under wraps until the film’s release — and that we won’t spoil here.
“I knew that Marvel was a big deal and had a big brand, especially Spider-Man,” Sink told Nylon. “But it feels really big. I think these blockbuster movies are a whole different beast.”
When it came to dodging questions about the role, Sink kept it simple. “You just don’t share the secret,” she said. “It’s not that hard.”
The Marvel return that didn’t make the final cut
Rosario Dawson nearly made an unexpected return to the Marvel universe in Brand New Day.
The actor reprised her role as the nurse Claire Temple, who appeared in all five of Marvel’s Netflix shows, but did not make the final cut.
“I even shot a scene in the new Spider-Man movie, but I got cut out,” Dawson told a GalaxyCon panel.
Zendaya thought MJ wasn’t weird enough
Returning to the role of MJ for the first time since 2021’s No Way Home, Zendaya and the filmmakers realized something was missing.
As they revisited the character several years later, they felt they had toned down the awkwardness that had become one of MJ’s defining traits.
“We were like, ‘She’s a little not weird enough. We need to bring a little bit of that back,” Zendaya told Fandango. The actor went through the script for what she called a “re-MJ-ifying pass,” restoring more of MJ’s offbeat humor.
Video games inspired the action scenes
Many of Spider-Man’s fight scenes were inspired by the character’s hit PlayStation games.
“For me, a lot of those finishing moves, a lot of our stuff was influenced by that stuff,” Holland told IGN.
Members of the stunt team took screenshots from the games to see whether they could recreate the moves onscreen.
Director Destin Daniel Cretton said, “We’d be like, ‘Yeah, that’s sick. Let’s try to figure out how to do that for real.'”
Tom Holland returned with a tank stunt
Holland’s first day back as Spider-Man was anything but low-key.
Behind-the-scenes footage showed him filming action scenes atop a moving tank on the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, which doubled for New York City.
Unlike No Way Home, which was largely shot on closed soundstages during the COVID-19 pandemic, Brand New Day began filming on a busy city street, with fans watching from the sidelines.
“It’s also the first time we ever had fans on set for day one,” Holland said. “So it’s really exciting to share this with them.”
