Less than one week after James Gunn confirmed that his 2021 movie The Suicide Squad is canon to the DCU, the DC Studios boss has swapped up the timeline yet again, finally confirming when new movie Clayface is set.

Over on Instagram Threads, ComicBookCollide posted their take on the DCU timeline, starting with Lanterns' past timeline in 2016, followed by Clayface in 2021, The Suicide Squad in early 2022, Peacemaker season 1 in late 2022, and so on. Gunn replied, "Timelines give me anxiety, but I think this looks pretty good."

So, with confirmation from Gunn, the updated DCU timeline is as follows:

• Lanterns – set in 2016
• Clayface – set in 2021
• The Suicide Squad – set in Spring 2022
• Peacemaker season 1 – set in Fall 2022
• Blue Beetle – set in 2023
• Creature Commandos – set in 2024
• Superman – set in 2025
• Peacemaker season 2 – set in 2025
• Supergirl – set in 2026
• Lanterns flash-forward – set in 2026

As for projects still in the works, the proposed timeline slots Creature and Commandos season 2 in between Peacemaker season 2 and Supergirl. While 2027 Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow and upcoming HBO mockumentary The People vs. Gorilla Grodd take place pretty much in present time, and will slot in after Lanterns (2026).

Now, we already knew that Clayface had broken the DCU's trend of releasing projects in chronological order, as Gunn had already confirmed that despite it releasing in 2026, the horror movie takes place before Superman. Up until that point, all DCU Chapter One releases took place in the present time in relation to when they hit the big screen.

Right now, it doesn't really matter when Clayface takes place, as it is a standalone story exploring the Batman villain's origin in Gotham City, with no mention of the wider universe. However, as the DCU grows and Gotham widens with projects such as The Brave and the Bold, we'll want to keep track of what happens when.

Clayface is out in cinemas now. For more, check out our guide on need to head to our guide on how to watch the DC movies in order, and keep up with upcoming DC movies on the way.

Almost two decades after he saddled up as Johnny Blaze, Nicolas Cage has shared his well wishes for Marvel's new Ghost Rider, Ryan Gosling.

"Ryan’s going to do his thing with it, and I’m looking forward to seeing it," said Cage to The Hollywood Reporter. The star revealed that he has already reached out to Gosling to pass on his congratulations, adding, "Ryan knows how I feel about him as an actor; we’ve had nice conversations, and we stay in touch. I was happy for him and wished him the best of luck on his adventures, and I look forward to seeing the movie.”

Cage starred as the fire-headed motorcycle stuntman in the 2007 movie Ghost Rider, following stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze who makes a deal with the Devil to save his father, but years later he is granted special powers so he can destroy the Devil's son, Blackheart. Funnily enough, the original movie also stars Eva Mendes as Blaze's love interest, who is Gosling's wife in real life. Cage reprised the role in the 2012 sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, but Blaze has been off our screens ever since.

Blaze was first introduced to Marvel Comics in 1972. After gaining his powers, the flaming skull head rides around on his fiery bike, going after criminals and punishing them in violent ways with his demonic powers. No plot details for the MCU Ghost Rider movie have been announced at this time, so it is not clear if it will act as an origin story as Cage's 2007 flick did. The new movie is set to start production in New York next year

Marvel announced the upcoming Ghost Rider movie earlier this year at San Diego Comic-Con 2026. Deadpool and Wolverine helmer Shawn Levy is set to direct, with Jonathan Tropper on board as writer. Heated Rivalry star Connor Storrie is in talks to play the movie's villain, and Marvel fans think he might be playing Johnny Blaze's long-lost brother and fellow Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch.

Ghost Rider is set to hit theaters on July 28, 2028. For more, keep up with other upcoming Marvel movies and shows.

Just over a month before the new MCU movie lands in cinemas, new Avengers: Doomsday artwork has found its way online, but a closer look at the X-Men reveals an interesting detail about Ian McKellen's Magneto.

The images were shared on Twitter by French fansite HexFacility, which has been known to share legit Marvel leaks in the past. Although we cannot confirm that the images have come from Marvel Studios, it looks like the artwork has been taken from Hasbro's Marvel Legends Avengers: Doomsday Series, as many of the images line up with the heroes' action-figure counterparts and the packaging.

The new images give us a new look at Captain America, Thor, Doctor Doom, Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Sue Storm, Reed Richards, the Thing, M'Baku, Shuri, and more.

The artwork also features X-Men Professor X, Magneto, Gambit, Cyclops, Mystique, Nightcrawler, and Beast. However, one Marvel fan on Reddit has noticed an interesting detail about Magneto. If you take a closer look, you can see that most of the mutants are wearing an X belt to signify they are part of Charles' X-Men squad, including Magneto. Check out the images below.

"I love how everyone has the X mark on their belts, even Magneto. It shows everyone is on the same side, despite Magneto and Mystique being rivals in the past," said the fan. Although we cannot see the front of Mystique's belt, it looks like she too is sporting the X-Men uniform. In the original Fox-era X-Men trilogy, Charles and Erik were often at odds, with Erik, aka Magneto, often waging war on the human race. But Charles was always there with his mutants to make him see sense.

We already knew that the two would be somewhat civil in the new movie. In the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, we see them sitting together, looking pretty terrified as their universe faces destruction from Doctor Doom. Alongside McKellan and the late Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Doomsday welcomes back original X-Men James Marsden as Cyclops, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler, and Kelsey Grammer as Beast, and adds Deadpool and Wolverine's Channing Tatum as Gambit.

But Magneto doesn't really have a choice either way, as everyone is going to have to work together if they have any chance of stopping Robert Downey Jr.'s Victor Von Doom. As the official synopsis reads, "Doomsday is set to bring beloved heroes from three distinct universes together as they’re set on a deadly collision course and face an existential threat unlike anything they’ve ever encountered."

Avengers: Doomsday hits US theaters on December 18, and in UK cinemas on December 16. For more on Marvel Phase 6, check out our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order, and keep up with upcoming Marvel movies on the way.

Hayley Atwell says Marvel explored a few different storylines for Avengers: Doomsday, and only a few made the cut.

"We tried different things, we shot different things, there were different storylines, some picked up, some developed, some dropped away," Atwell told The Playlist, careful to not reveal specifics.

Despite being absent from the initial cast reveal (which, if you recall, involved a livestream and several chairs), she made a surprise appearance during Marvel's big Hall H panel at SDCC 2026 that confirmed her involvement in Doomsday. Most recently, she appeared in a special Avengers: Endgame Encore post-credits scene alongside Chris Evans. In the scene, Loki travels back into the past and knocks on Steve and Peggy's door.

It wouldn't make sense for Steve Rogers to appear in Doomsday without Peggy, given that his decision to return to the past (rather than grow old and run for government like Bucky Barnes) was based solely on his desire to live out a full life with Peggy instead.

Atwell made her last MCU appearance in 2022's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as a multiversal variant, known as Captain Carter, belonging to Earth-838. It was a short-lived cameo, however, as she was quickly killed by the Scarlet Witch (something that Atwell said was a "disservice" to her character).

Avengers: Doomsday hits US theaters on December 18, and in UK cinemas on December 16. Get up to speed on Marvel Phase 6 with our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

Avengers: Doomsday has rocketed to impressive pre-sales, and the upcoming Marvel movie is about to cross one significant milestone by making more money than the entire box office run of DCU mega-flop Supergirl.

Per Forbes, Avengers: Doomsday has already made over $125 million in pre-sales alone since tickets went on sale way back on August 14. This, incredibly, puts it on the cusp of surpassing the entire global box office run of this summer's Supergirl, which topped out at $126,466,532. Given it's been two days since that $125 million figure was reported, it's possible Doomsday has already blown past Supergirl, in fact.

By September, Doomsday had made over $50 million in pre-sales, all despite IMAX screens in most territories exclusively playing Dune 3. Though you can check the movie out on a Disney-certified Infinity Vision screen if you like. While many were sceptical of Doomsday's box office prospects as Marvel Studios scrambled to reconfigure The Kang Dynasty plans in the wake of the Jonathan Majors scandal, it's now undeniable that Doomsday will be a colossal hit. Whether it can surpass Spider-Man: Brand New Day's record-breaking success is another question.

Marvel fans got an extra taste of Avengers: Doomsday with Avengers: Endgame Encore. The re-release contains four new scenes, including a new ending to the movie featuring Loki, two mid-credits scenes (one of which revealed that Doom has abducted Bruce Banner), and a post-credits scene that seems to link Tony Stark and Victor Von Doom. A Disney Plus release has yet to be announced, though there is a landing page on the streaming service already.

The latest Doomsday tease came from an unlikely source: Pedro Pascal and Robert Downey Jr.'s Halloween costumes, with an Easter egg seemingly revealing that their characters went to M.I.T. together. New Doomsday footage released last week, meanwhile, has fans convinced that something is up with Steve Rogers, and it could have everything to do with Loki.

Avengers: Doomsday releases in US theaters on December 18, and in UK cinemas on December 16. Make sure you're up to speed on Marvel Phase 6 with our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

Despite it releasing before he took over as DC Studios co-CEO, James Gunn has confirmed that his movie The Suicide Squad is DCU canon. So, unsurprisingly, there have been a few questions about how this works, especially as Superman is mentioned in the 2021 movie.

During Gunn's new The Suicide Squad: Is it Canon? Podcast, co-host and Peacemaker's John Economos actor Steve Agee read out a question from a fan asking if The Suicide Squad really is canon to the DCU, did Bloodsport really shoot Superman. DC fans will remember that the 2021 movie finds Bloodsport sitting in jail due to shooting and taking down the hero with a Kryptonite bullet.

Gunn answered, "There's a couple of things potentially that get in the way of being canon. One is time." Superman is set in 2025, four whole years after The Suicide Squad was released and presumably takes place. However, at the start of the first DCU Chapter One movie, we learn that Supermna has only been in commission for three years. To fix that, Gunn says he would have to push The Suicide Squad up to 2023 or 2024. " I don't think that's the biggest deal in the world," added the director.

The other issue is that at the start of Superman, which Gunn says is "most definitively canon," we learn that he has just been defeated for the very first time by Lex Luthor Ultraman. So, if that is Superman's first defeat, what happened with Bloodsport? "I don't necessarily think that flying around, not only perhaps taking your flying dog out for a walk or whatever he was doing and being taken down with a Kryptonite bullet and going to the hospital is a battle," explains Gunn. "It's not necessarily defeat. He was just shot."

However, it sounds as though Gunn is growing tired of dealing with dates. "People are always asking me about timelines. I think we have to chill out a little with the timelines," stated the DC boss. "It's not possible to make things perfectly line up."

The next DCU movie is Man of Tomorrow, arriving July 9, 2027. For more, keep up with all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows on the way.

After setting the record straight that his 2021 movie The Suicide Squad is DCU canon, James Gunn says Margot Robbie could return as Harley Quinn, that is, if she wants to.

"Margot Robbie is one of my favorite actors to work with… I don't know where Margot's head is with all of this. But also, Harley is a character I'm almost certainly going to use in the DCU, and if Margot wants to play her, then I'll bend over backwards to explain that in the world," said Gunn on his The Suicide Squad: Is it Canon? podcast. "But if she doesn't, then I can go with somebody else where I don't have to be attached to Harley in [The Suicide Squad]."

Robbie first suited up as DC villain Harley Quinn in David Ayer's 2016 movie Suicide Squad, and then led her own movie in 202's Birds of Prey, before returning in 2021 for Gunn's sequel, The Suicide Squad. It wouldn't be too surprising to see Robbie return, as her The Suicide Squad co-star and Peacemaker actor John Cena has already been introduced to the DCU, as Peacemaker season 2 is canon and takes place after the events of Superman.

Even though Gunn became the co-CEO of DC Studios the year after The Suicide Squad hit screens, he is keen to include the project in his new world. "I think that The Suicide Squad is within the canon of the DCU. It's decided," said Gunn earlier on the Podcast. "I'd say we have one small asterisk, which is: what exactly is the future of Harley Quinn?"

The issue with adding Quinn is that Gunn would also have to find a new Joker, since the Batman villain is to blame for Quinn's creation. "I think Harley is one of the most difficult things in this to justify as being canon in the DCU. Harley's relationship to the Joker, specifically," said Gunn. "We haven't established the Joker yet in the DCU at all. We've established Batman. We see him in Creature and Commandos for a glimpse. But we don't know if Joker exists yet, and obviously, Joker is a part of Harley's past."

However, the DCU has yet to find its live-action Bat, though Gunn says Batman will be cast soon, ahead of the heroes' first DCU Chapter One movie, The Brave and the Bold. Who knows, perhaps the Joker or even Harley will make an appearance then.

The next DCU movie is Man of Tomorrow, arriving July 9, 2027. For more, keep up with all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows on the way.

Over two years after Deadpool & Wolverine hit theaters, Disney has finally revealed the true budget for one of Marvel's most profitable movies ever.

During the company's latest earnings report (via Forbes), Disney stated that the 2024 movie went over budget, bringing the total cost to $556.8 million. Added costs came from disruptions such as the 2023 strikes, which paused production halfway through shooting. However, due to the movie being shot at Pinewood Studios in the UK, Disney was reimbursed over $110 million in tax credits, lowering the total cost to $446.1 million.

That's still a pretty hefty price tag, and it means that Deadpool and Wolverine is Marvel Studios' most expensive movie ever. To put that into perspective, Avengers: Endgame is thought to have cost up to $400 million to make, with Avengers: Age of Ultron and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness not far behind.

The movie united Ryan Reynolds' potty-mouthed Deadpool and a variant of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine as they teamed up to save Deadpool's universe from being destroyed. As well as a rather iconic dance sequence and a ton of gags, the movie also welcomes back a bunch of original mutants who make surprise cameos, and even saw Channing Tatum finally suit up as Gambit, all of which caused fans to flock to the cinema in droves.

Alas, it all worked out: Deadpool & Wolverine grossed a whopping $1.34 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. The mutant team-up is perhaps also to thank for Marvel's resurgence, as it was the first Marvel Studios movie to gross over $1 billion after the pandemic. This year, Spider-Man: Brand New Day became the highest-grossing MCU movie of all time domestically, pulling in $958.7 million in the US. But of course that was made in partnership with Sony.

Until very recently, Deadpool & Wolverine held the title as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, but was knocked off its throne by Christopher Nolan's ancient Greek epic The Odyssey, which has earned over $1.8 billion after hitting screens this summer.

Deadpool & Wolverine is available to stream on Disney Plus now. Next up for the MCU is Avengers: Doomsday, which hits theaters on December 18. For more, check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order, and keep up with upcoming Marvel movies on the way.

Three months after announcing the project at Marvel's SDCC 2026 panel, the studio is making moves on casting the movie, tapping Heated Rivalry star Connor Storrie to star.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Storrie is in talks to star in Ghost Rider alongside Ryan Gosling. Although Gosling's role has yet to be officially confirmed, it is presumed he is playing the flaming skull-headed stunt motorcycle rider Johnny Blaze, who transforms into the supernatural anti-hero after making a deal with the devil. Riding around on his fiery bike, Blaze goes after criminals and villains and punishes them with his demonic powers.

Storrie recently found fame starring as the Russian hockey player Ilya Rozanov in Crave's hot Canadian sports romance TV show Heated Rivalry. It has not been confirmed who Storrie will be playing in Marvel's Ghost Rider adaptation, but it is thought that he will portray the villain of the story. Ghost Rider has a string of foes in the comics, including Mephisto, Mephisto’s son Blackheart, and a few ancient demons and angels. But Mephisto already exists in the MCU, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, so Storrie cannot be him.

One Marvel head is sure that Storrie is playing Danny Ketch. "What if, instead, [Storrie] is filling the flaming skull of another Spirit of Vengeance?" said Charles Murphy of Murphy's Universe, adding, "this narrative architecture solves Marvel Studios’ biggest creative challenge with the property: how to ground two distinct generations of Ghost Rider without retreading the origin story told in 2007’s Nicolas Cage film."

Danny Ketch is not so much a villain, but another version of Ghost Rider. First introduced in 1990, Danny transforms into the Ghost Rider after watching his sister be shot by a gang. Out of nowhere, a motorcycle appeared, and when he place sis bloody hand on its sigil, he transformed into the undead anti-hero. Ketch is later revealed as the long-lost brother of the original Ghost Rider, Blaze. If this is the direction Marvel is going in, the casting would make sense, as Gosling and Storrie could pass as siblings.

The movie is directed by Deadpool and Wolverine helmer Shawn Levy and written by Jonathan Tropper.

Marvel Studios' Ghost Rider is set to start production in New York next year and is set to hit theaters on July 28, 2028. For more, keep up with other upcoming Marvel movies and shows.

Marvel Studios has released a new Avengers: Doomsday TV spot, and while it features mere seconds of new footage, that hasn't stopped fans from developing a wild new theory: that Loki is impersonating Steve Rogers.

There are a few pieces of evidence pointing to this. First, during the scene where Scott Lang calls Steve Cap, he turns around despite knowing that the shield and that moniker have passed to Sam Wilson. Loki might not know this if he's impersonating Steve. And second, the smile that Steve flashes Thor before they take off in the Bifrost resembles Loki's fraternal smile to his brother. Of course, this wouldn't be the first time Loki has impersonated Steve Rogers – the God of Stories briefly transforms into Cap during Thor: The Dark World.

Whether this theory holds weight or is another case of the Mephistos, there's no denying that something feels off about Steve Rogers in Doomsday. Earlier this year, fans developed another theory that the Steve we see in Doomsday might actually be a Hydra agent from another universe, instead of the Steve we know and love. And we don't yet know why Steve's appearance changes so much between his final scenes in Avengers: Endgame and Doomsday, where he has longer hair.

If you're still not sure what the heck Doomsday is going to be about, the new footage in Avengers: Endgame Encore actually gave us some pretty good clues - and more or less warned us that the end is nigh for Earth-616. An incursion is headed for the universe that houses our beloved Fox X-Men, which explains why we saw Patrick Stewart's Professor X crying while looking up at the sky in a previous trailer. We also know that the TVA is trying its darndest to prevent these incursions from happening, and it's Loki who is responsible for Steve Roger's puzzling return to the present.

Don't worry: Marvel isn't dropping another big MCU event and then letting it coast for six years. Avengers: Secret Wars is due out in 2027, and if Doomsday is following the Jonathan Hickman Avengers comic book run, this means the new movie will lead right into the 2015 Secret Wars event... which is all about Doctor Doom and Battle World.

Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18. For more of what's to come, check out our list of the 5 biggest questions we have for Avengers: Doomsday after watching that last trailer. For more, check out our list of all the upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows on the way.

Marvel had a tough choice to make after Avengers: Endgame. It could continue playing the hits, relying on nostalgia and familiar faces to coast until the next event movie, or it could introduce a new generation of heroes to freshen up the MCU.

To its credit, Marvel Studios opted for the second option – but it didn't work out exactly as anyone hoped.

As great as it was seeing diverse faces run around the cinematic universe, Ms. Marvel, Echo, and the Eternals all failed to live up to what came before. It says a lot that Kevin Feige has course-corrected for Avengers: Doomsday, bringing back the likes of Thor, Steve Rogers, and several legacy X-Men characters to be front and center instead of placing considerable trust in the new guard.

With a few exceptions, that is. Florence Pugh's Yelena has, of course, shone since her Black Widow debut. But no one quite held their own like Simu Liu's Shang-Chi.

Released in 2021, when Tony Stark's Endgame sacrifice was still fresh in the memory, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings may have been a wordy title, but was refreshingly simple in how it cemented its hero as a major player in the MCU thanks to a potent mix of killer fight scenes and sparkling wit.

Shang-Chi doesn't waste time getting moving. In the opening minutes, the ancient Ten Rings – weapons of immense power – are established and, in the present day, the group that shares the same name attacks Shang-Chi on a bus, standing out as one of Marvel's best individual action sequences.

From there, Shang-Chi leads us on a lightning-quick journey, bouncing from kinetic set-piece to kinetic set-piece as he becomes wrapped up in a family drama that adds a more personal touch that has largely been absent in Marvel's recent films. It also adds a splash of mysticism and mystery to the MCU, something that has been sorely missing, making the universe feel a lot deeper and richer before it became distracted by the multiverse.

Yes, the final act is way too CGI-heavy, and Trevor Slattery's long-overdue return is tonally jarring, but Shang-Chi soars when it should stumble. Coming out of COVID, everyone expected this to fail. In the end, it won audiences over with charm and style to the tune of over $430 million.

A hard-hitting newcomer

Now, on to Doomsday. Shang-Chi going AWOL in the MCU in the past half-decade has undoubtedly been one of Marvel's biggest misfires, failing to capitalize on the momentum of the character while director Destin Daniel Cretton went on to break box office records helming Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

That won't be the case in Doomsday. Carrying on from Bruce Banner and Captain Marvel contacting him in the Shang-Chi post-credits, the new holder of the Ten Rings is seemingly going to be treated as a big deal.

The Doomsday trailer even teases just how much Shang-Chi will be getting involved, pitting him in a mouthwatering clash against Channing Tatum's card-dealing Gambit.

It's a great case, too, for a simple superhero maxim: who would win in a fight? Already, we can't wait to see the martial artist and the mutant butt heads as the multiverse collapses around them.

Even better, it immediately elevates Shang-Chi into an Avengers-level hero without feeling like he's been shoehorned in. He belongs alongside the X-Men, the Avengers, and anyone else who might accompany them in the fight against Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom. That's high praise indeed.

So, before you head into Doomsday this December, make sure you're familiar with Shang-Chi. If you missed it the first time round, you're in for a spectacle filled with the sort of action scenes that clearly marked Destin Daniel Cretton out as a perfect fit for Spidey, as well as platforming Shang-Chi as someone who could hang with the best of them. If you are back for more, it's time to get reacquainted with the holder of the Ten Rings. He just might be more important than you think in a few months' time.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.

Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next rewatch. See you next week as we revisit Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Just two months after her X-Men casting was first announced, Obsession star Inde Navarrette has given fans a taste of her Rogue accent.

Navarrette was put on the spot and asked by eTalk to give fans a sneak peek of her Rogue accent, saying the mutant's famous line, 'Sugar,' in Rogue's strong Southern accent, which Navarrette bravely attempted on camera. Watch the clip below.

Rogue, real name Anna Marie, was first introduced to Marvel Comics in 1981. The mutant's particular power is absorbing the life force, superpowers, and memories of anyone she touches. But her touch is deadly, meaning she cannot ever get close to anyone, which causes issues in her relationship with Gambit. Rogue is a runaway from Mississippi, so in most on-screen adaptations she sports a thick accent.

Even though Navarrette admits she needs more practice, some Marvel fans approve of her voice already. "She sounds this good, and this is before the voice coaches," said one fan on Twitter, and another added, "As someone who is from the South, that sugar wasn’t bad." But others think she needs to do a little more homework. "It’s a start, all of the South is watching you with great expectations," added one fan.

Navarrette isn't the first to tackle Rogue's Mississippi drawl. The voice that Marvel fans most associate with Rogue belongs to Lenore Zann, who was the first to voice the character in X-Men: The Animated Series in 1992–1997 and later returned for the Disney Plus animated prequel show X-Men '97 in 2024. However, in live-action, Anna Paquin notably played the character in Fox's X-Men trilogy.

Rumours of Navarrette's casting started swirling as early as July when the star met with Marvel's X-Men director Jake Schreier. But at D23 in August, Navarrette walked on stage with the rest of the cast and her Rogue casting was officially confirmed.

Alongside the Obsession actor, the movie stars Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, Kit Connor as Cyclops, Samantha Weaving as Emma Frost, Adam Driver as Mr. Sinister, Maya Boyd as Storm, Asa Germann as Angel, and Christopher Abbott as Professor Xavier.

X-Men is set to hit theatres on May 5, 2028. For more, check out our ranking of the best X-Men movies, and keep up with other upcoming Marvel movies and shows.

Every year the Razzie Awards roll around, honouring the worst acting performances of the season. But although the ceremony is meant to be a bit of fun, DC star Jessie Eisenberg says winning one in 2017 seriously affected his career.

"I couldn't get into movie studio parts anymore because I had won a Raspberry Award from [being in the] Batman movie," said Eisenberg at the BFI London Film Festival (via Variety).

Eisenberg was awarded the Razzie, officially known as The Golden Raspberry, for worst supporting actor for his performance in the 2016 DC movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The star played villain Lex Luthor across from Henry Cavill's Superman and Ben Affleck's Batman. The movie itself took home four Razzies in total, including worst sequel, worst screenplay, and worst screen combo.

However, what was supposedly meant to be a lighthearted joke made Eisenberg change direction in his career. "A lot of it just came from fear," added the star. Eisenberg moved away from acting and began to pursue writing and directing. "The industry tells you what they want from you. The industry did not want me to be in a superhero movie, and if you're smart and self-aware, you learn that quickly."

In fact, Superman v Batman's bad reception made him turn away from the superhero genre altogether. "It's the unsuccessful actor that goes, 'No, I want to be in more of those.' It's not going to happen, and they don't want you there, and they wouldn't have given you a Raspberry Award if they wanted you there. That's an award for bad acting," he explained. "So I was like, 'I've got to direct movies.' That's why I started writing them, just to kind of keep my career afloat, really."

Since the 2016 movie, Eisenberg has written and directed movies When You Finish Saving the World, the Oscar-winning 2024 flick Real Pain, and new release The Debut. But Eisenberg is still acting, starring in movies such as Vivarium, and returning for sequels Zombieland: Double Tap and Now You See Me: Now You Don't.

For more, keep up with upcoming movies and movie release dates.

Pre-MCU, if you polled most fans on the best superhero movies, there's a reasonable chance that X2 would be in the top 3. The 2003 sequel is a seismic step up from its predecessor, fully delivering on the promise of Marvel's mutants on screen with a true ensemble comic book movie that blurs the lines between its heroes and villains. And it could prove the perfect model for integrating Doctor Doom alongside the Avengers in Avengers: Doomsday.

X2, for the uninitiated or those in need of a refresher, is the follow-up to 2000's messy, but undeniably important, X-Men. Following an attack on the White House by acrobatic teleporter Nightcrawler – a sequence that still thrills to this day – tensions between mutantkind and the rest of the world are at an all-time high. Enter Colonel William Stryker (Brian Cox), a military scientist who has a history with Wolverine, and leads an attack on Xavier's mansion, kidnapping Professor X and Cyclops.

Stryker, it turns out, has a plan to kill every living mutant using his telepathic son, Jason, and his own version of Cerebro. With a shared enemy to take care of, the X-Men forge an alliance of necessity with Magneto and the Brotherhood of Mutants, teaming up to infiltrate Stryker's arctic Akali Lake base. Expertly juggling its large ensemble, it also manages to lay some tantalizing groundwork for the Dark Phoenix Saga – a story the X-Men movies would go on to squander on two separate occasions.

New mutants

23 years later, X2 still impresses. Without access to anything-goes VFX tools and the gargantuan budget levels of modern-day superhero tentpoles, it's a far more intimate and personal comic book blockbuster than anything you'll see nowadays, where world/universe-ending stakes are the norm. But this works in its favor; there's a lot of rich character work and knotty drama here among the memorable spectacle.

Nightcrawler alone remains one of the coolest comic book characters ever brought to the screen, his powerset perfectly suited to dazzling in live action. The attack on Xavier's mansion allows Wolverine to let rip in supremely satisfying fashion, followed by a brutal showdown with Lady Deathstrike that betters any of the awkward adamantium-clawed action in Deadpool & Wolverine. And Magneto's ingenious escape from his plastic prison is a spectacularly well-staged sequence that's better for its simplicity.

Before Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame proved that the MCU could deftly juggle two dozen main characters in a single movie – albeit with 18 films worth of setup – X2 set the standard for ensemble superhero storytelling. Surprisingly few characters feel shortchanged here (Rogue among them, in part a consequence of her central role in the first movie), with around half a dozen interconnected story threads dovetailing at Alkali Lake. Even the film's Dark Phoenix sequel tease doesn't feel egregious, because you've had such a full meal up to that point already.

Universes collide

So why is X2 on Marvel's essential (re)watchlist ahead of Avengers: Doomsday? The simple answer is that the OG X-Men are set to play a crucial part in proceedings. Notably, Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler – who didn't appear in the first X-Men – is also set to return in Doomsday, alongside OG mutants Professor X, Magneto, Mystique, Cyclops, and Beast.

But I'd argue there's much Doomsday could draw from X2. Without as much of a build-up this time, Doomsday needs to establish its stakes and new threat, Doctor Doom, far quicker than the last Avengers-level mega-event, something X2 excels at. Likewise, X2 is a masterclass in establishing a villain with human motivations and deep connections to existing heroes – something Marvel will need to replicate with Doom if he's to work.

The use of Magneto in X2 could also prove something of template for Doom. In X2, Magneto eventually teams up with the X-Men to take down Stryker, as he's a threat to all mutantkind. The enemy of my enemy proverb literalized. Doom, in all likelihood, will need to spend a significant chunk of Doomsday working alongside the Avengers in an effort to stop the incursions threatening the multiverse, before being revealed as the one orchestrating the chaos.

Either way, as a still-superlative example of ensemble superhero storytelling, there's much Avengers: Doomsday could learn from X2, and plenty to recommend about the movie, even after 18 years of the MCU. And perhaps one day, following a pair of infamous misfires, Marvel's own fresh-faced X-Men lineup will finally make good on the promise of Jean Grey's Dark Phoenix.

X-Men 2 is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.

Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next rewatch. See you next week as we revisit Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Hawkeye star Jeremy Renner has stated that he is not in Avengers: Doomsday, but that the team will probably lose against Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom because they don't have his marksman on their side.

When asked at a recent Q&A if he is returning for Doomsday, Renner said, "No, no, no, no. Not in that one," adding, "Doomsday I'm not in, so The Avengers will probably lose, just so you know… they didn't call me so it's their fault they're going to lose."

When Renner jokes about the Avengers losing without him, one audience member shouted out "again," seemingly in reference to Avengers: Infinity War, which saw the squad lose to Thanos as he successfully collected all of the Infinity Stones. Renner was absent for Infinity War. Hawkeye played a rather large role in Avengers: Endgame, which saw the super-team defeat the Mad Titan, so Renner's theory checks out.

Renner's involvement in Doomsday has been rumoured many times, but the star seems pretty certain that he isn't returning. Many Marvel fans think he is telling fibs, and that Hawkeye will show up. "He’s definitely lying," said one fan on Twitter. However, it has been heavily rumoured that Renner will return in Avengers: Secret Wars, which the star confirms as he says "not in that one," seemingly referring to his part in the sixth Avengers flick over Doomsday.

Alas, despite Doomsday's stacked cast, co-director Anthony Russo has confirmed that there are still some casting surprises on the way. At an Avengers: Endgame Encore Q&A, Russo added, "the cast is so large, and we've announced some of the cast, and we haven't announced some of the cast." But even if Renner was involved, he probably wouldn't be able to confirm it. When asked the same question, Vision star Paul Bettany told Good Morning America that if he answered that he would "get fired."

Doomsday's confirmed cast includes Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, the new Fantastic Four, the Thunderbolts, the Wakandans, most of the original Fox-era X-Men, and more.

Avengers: Doomsday hits cinemas on December 18, and December 16 in the UK. For more, check out our guide to the Marvel timeline, and keep up with upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way.

Despite Avengers: Doomsday already having a stacked cast, we know that the full line-up has yet to be revealed. However, Vision star Paul Bettany still won't confirm whether he will appear in the fifth Avengers movie or not.

"I’m just trying to keep the kids in shoes, and if I tell you that, I’ll get fired. I’m just out there hustling, " said Bettany to Good Morning America. "That's for [Marvel Studios President] Kevin Feige and [Co-President and executive producer] Louis D'Esposito to decide."

Doomsday is set to bring together all of the remaining Avengers alongside a ton of Marvel heroes to face Robert Downey Jr's Doctor Doom. The cast includes Chris Hemsworth's Thor, Chris Evans's Steve Rogers, the new Fantastic Four, the Thunderbolts, most of the original Fox-era X-Men, and more. But, technically, Vision is an Avenger too, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think he could also make an appearance.

During an Avengers: Endgame Encore Q&A, Anthony Russo confirmed that there are still some casting surprises on the way. "The cast is so large, and we've announced some of the cast, and we haven't announced some of the cast," said the Doomsday co-director, adding, "Joe and I are still very deep in the process of finishing Doomsday. We always say we're not done with a movie until they pry it out of our cold, dead hands."

Doomsday wouldn't be Bettany's first rodeo with the Marvel superhero team, as Vision was part of both Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Infinity War. However, Bettany jokes that his Marvel credentials aren't enough to impress his kids. "Every time I go into my Disney [Plus] login, I have to change the username," adds Bettany. "My kids always put a picture of me as Vision and 'The Worst Avenger' underneath."

Alas, we know for sure we are going to see Bettany's Vision this year whether he shows up in Doomsday or not, as the android's own series hits Disney Plus this month. VisionQuest welcomes back Bettany as the new and improved Vision known as White Vision, who has since been hiding from those who seek to weaponize him. But when a bounty is placed on his head, Vision is forced to go on the run with a mysterious teenager who may be his reincarnated son. The show also stars James Spader as Ultron.

Avengers: Doomsday hits cinemas on December 18, and December 16 in the UK. VisionQuest arrives on October 13, and on October 14 in the UK. For more, check out our guide to the Marvel timeline, and keep up with upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way.

26 years ago, the first all-out superhero ensemble movie hit screens. Introducing legendary characters to live action such as Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and Patrick Stewart's Charles Xavier, the first X-Men movie did what had never really been done before, bringing a team of heroes with equal agency together to face a common enemy. That formula would be repeated over and over, and was the first step on the road to the ultimate team-up movie, Avengers: Doomsday, releasing later this year.

Aside from the questionable outfits, the 2000 movie was a smash hit amongst Marvel comics fans at the time, and still holds up today. Not only does the movie act as a perfect origin story for Xavier's superhero team, but it also introduces characters and relationships that survive on screen for decades to come. But in a rather ironic twist, the whole story will come full circle later this year in Avengers: Doomsday, as the same characters to introduce the modern superhero ensemble format are returning in the ultimate team-up adventure.

Over two decades after X-Men hit screens, Doomsday welcomes back most of the original mutants, including Xavier, Ian Mckellen's Magneto, James Marsden's Cyclops, and Rebecca Romijn's Mystique, as they make their MCU debut. But with the MCU shifting into a new era, it feels like the fifth Avengers movie is bringing the OG heroes back just to kill them off, which makes looking back to the start of their journey that more heartbreaking.

The first to do it

Directed by disgraced filmmaker Bryan Singer, X-Men introduces Wolverine as he plods across the nation with no memory of how he gained his powers, struggling to accept his new identity. That is until he meets the equally confused teen mutant Rogue (Anna Paquin). But just as the two become targets for the villain Magneto and his henchmen Sabretooth and Toad, they are scooped up by Professor X's squad. And so the X-Men team was born. The movie gives us just enough of a taste of each mutant's respective powers and a glimpse at their backstories, and sets up the heated rivalry between Xavier and Magneto that launches the whole franchise.

But you may be thinking, what do you mean X-Men was the first superhero ensemble movie? What about the early Batman movies that saw the Caped Crusader and Robin team up? Or 1987's Masters of the Universe? It is true that heroes did band together on screen before, but there was always one frontrunner followed by a gaggle of sidekicks. X-Men was the first major Hollywood movie to successfully bring a superhero team to the big screen where all the lead characters played an important part in the story. The joining of heroes who have similar capabilities would be replicated later down the line in 2012's The Avengers, spawning a whole franchise in and of itself.

The end of an era

However, according to the Avengers: Doomsday synopsis, the Marvel Phase 6 film is setting itself up as a pivotal moment in MCU history, which could mark the end for the original X-Men. "Universes collide, and the Multiverse Saga begins its final chapter," reads the synopsis. "This epic film will lay the foundation for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe." Now, to me, that sounds as though the movie will say goodbye to a bunch of old heroes in order to make way for a new era. Furthermore, the Doomsday cast list is so incredibly stacked that there is no way all of the characters will be able to share screen time, meaning many may be binned early on.

In the added Avengers: Endgame Encore footage, the TVA learns that 3,000 universes have impending incursions, the first being between the Fox X-Men universe Earth-10005 and a new universe Earth-1127. The incursions are no doubt caused by Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom, who is on a path to avenge his own misfortune. But it may be too late for the X-Men. In the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, we see that parts of the X-Mansion have been destroyed, and another shot shows Xavier looking up at the fiery sky. Universes colliding is worlds away from the early 00s movie, so it may be a little too much for X and Magneto, who are huddled together and honestly look terrified.

In with the new

I believe Doomsday will give our favourite Mutants time to shine, though, before closing their coffins shut. In the trailer, we see Gambit fighting Shang-Chi, and in another scene, Mystique shape-shifts into Florence Pugh's Yelena. The mutants are probably trying to protect themselves from the strange heroes who have landed in their universe, who are really there to save them. But the X-Men will probably be no match for Doctor Doom, who has been described as "very difficult to beat" by director Joe Russo. Especially as Famke Janssen's ultra-powerful Jean Grey is absent.

It's going to be incredibly sad to see the OG X-Men go, particularly Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen's Professor X and Magneto, whose turbulent relationship kept us on our toes for decades. However, the Fox-era X-Men deserve a proper send-off. Let's face it, the old mutants could never have stayed around in the MCU for long, as Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier's upcoming X-Men movie is already in the works. The new movie is set to welcome back Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, adding Kit Connor's Cyclops, Christopher Abbott's Professor X, Inde Navarrette's Rogue, and more.

The first X-Men movie is required viewing ahead of Avengers: Doomsday, mainly to remind you how important the X-Men are to Marvel Studios and how one 26-year-old superhero film, that is on a pretty small scale compared to ensemble flicks today, changed the modern superhero genre forever. Knowing that this may be the last time we see our favourite mutants is devastating, but rewatching the first X-Men movie also makes me super excited to see the early days of a new group of mutants again.

Avengers: Endgame is available to stream now on Disney Plus, ahead of the release of Avengers: Doomsday on December 18. Avengers: Endgame Encore is in theaters now.

Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and check out how to watch the Marvel movies in order ahead of your next rewatch. See you next week as we revisit the second X-Men movie, X2.

According to Spider-Man: Brand New Day co-writer Chris McKenna, the new MCU movie almost went down a completely different path from the metamorphosis story that was delivered, revealing that we could have gotten a British Peter Parker.

"We went down some different roads," said McKenna on The Bulwark podcast. "At one point, we had him putting on a British accent. So it would have been Tom’s British accent, but Tom from Queens pretending he’s British."

McKenna explained that the scene involved Tom Holland's Parker running into Zendaya's MJ, but because her memory was wiped at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, he had to introduce himself. However, rather than pretending to be 'Maynard' like he does in Brand New Day, McKenna explains that the alternate idea had Parker pretending to be from across the pond. But it was all about "juggling personas."

McKenna continues, "So he meets MJ a few years later. The circumstances are that he's Spider-Man, and he's talking to her, but basically he has to fall in with her to get in on this mystery. But in that version, he's not Spider-Man. He's pretending to be someone else. Ben Reilly. But he's Ben Reilly, a British person, who then falls in with her to find out what is going on with something that she knows about."

In Marvel comics, Ben Reilly is a Spider-Man variant and a clone of Parker who was created by the supervillain the Jackal to torment Spidey. But Reilly later broke free from the baddie and went on to become a hero known as the Scarlet Spider. Reilly, however, is not British, so the accent idea was probably a little dig at Holland's nationality. But Brand New Day still makes light of this, as when Ned shares his Spidey tracking with Parker, ahem, Maynard, he poses the idea of Spider-Man being British.

However, you may be thinking to yourself, 'Wait, where have I heard the name Ben Reilly recently?' Well, that is the alias used by Nicolas Cage's Spider-Noir in the Prime Video series. Although Amazon's Spider-Noir series is separate from the MCU, and Noir's real name in the comics is Peter Parker, both Brand New Day and the TV show mentioning different versions of Ben Reilly may have caused some confusion.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now. For more, check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, or our spoiler-filled guide to the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained.

Before landing on an emotional Jean Grey-centric story that helped Spider-Man: Brand New Day become the highest-grossing film of all time in the US, the movie once known as Spider-Man 4 was almost very, very different. And in a new interview, Brand New Day co-writer Chris McKenna has revealed some surprising early ideas that we hope make their way to the big screen one day.

Speaking on the Bulwark Goes to Hollywood podcast, McKenna – a writer on every Tom Holland Spider-Man film to date – explained how he and co-writer Erik Sommers struggled to find the right villains during early development on both No Way Home and Brand New Day due to the complicated shared-custody agreement between Sony and Marvel Studios for Spider-Man's extended universe of characters. This led the pair to explore some unexpected avenues during early script development.

"We were told they were never going to make a standalone Kraven movie… and we had fun ways to get into the Kraven character," McKenna said. "Kraven turning New York City into, like, a Home Alone trap for Spider-Man, where he's got booby traps everywhere, and [is] just hunting down Peter Parker. He could be either hired by someone, and maybe [you] don't even have to make him the centerpiece villain, but just someone who's stalking him the entire movie."

But, as we know, an ill-fated Kraven standalone was already in the works, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, ruling out a secondary role in a Spider-Man movie. "And then it was a joke. It was like, 'Oh no, Sony's making a standalone Kraven movie.' Like, you've got to be kidding me," McKenna said.

As for Brand New Day, the latest Spidey outing wasn't initially conceived as an introduction for Jean Grey, with McKenna and Sommers exploring other possible scenarios for Peter during early development. Among those ideas: a courtroom comedy featuring Peter's returning legal representative Matt Murdock.

"We had Peter so done with New York with his past that he goes off and sort of is a badass hero in Southeast Asia, taking down Southeast Asian gangs," McKenna explained. "He's living on a boat, like on a river, and cleaning it, fixing the engine, making his own web fluid. And then he gets a message in a video about Spider-Man back in New York, like charming fans. He's like, 'What?' There's some imposter in New York.

"So then he has to go all the way back to New York to deal with this imposter, like 'Who is this guy?' And he gets there, and he finds out this guy is using my web fluid, and he's using my suit. And it turns out the guy has done what Peter Parker had never done, where he actually had copyrighted the Spider-Man brand, like trademarked it, and had his web fluid.

“Then [Peter] had to hire Matt Murdock as a lawyer to help him fight. Because Peter Parker gets a cease-and-desist from this other guy [saying] you can't pretend that you're Spider-Man. And so it began this whole thing that was pretty fun, but it was just a different story."

While both ideas sound tremendously fun – we're particularly fond of Kraven hunting Spider-Man around New York – Sony and Marvel Studios are undoubtedly pleased with where they landed, given Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now the highest-grossing film of all time domestically after passing Star Wars: The Force Awakens' decade-long record. And, hey, there's bound to be a Spider-Man 5 to tap into those unused ideas with great potential.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now. For more, check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, or our spoiler-filled guide to the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is not just the biggest Marvel movie at the US box office, it's also the biggest movie at the domestic box office overall.

Per Variety, the fourth Tom Holland-led Spider-Man movie has grossed $936.773 in just 47 days at the North American box office... narrowly beating out Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which grossed $936 million and held the title of biggest US movie for 10 years.

In August, Brand New Day passed Avengers: Endgame, which has an overall domestic gross of $858 million, as the highest-grossing Marvel movie at the US box office. Overall, the Spidey movie has grossed $2.45 billion at the global box office, which is still not enough to beat Endgame's total gross of $2.8 billion.

The new film takes place four years after the events Spider-Man: No Way Home and introduces us to Sadie Sink's Jean Grey, who is New York City's latest undefeatable threat as she goes on the attack in order to find her kidnapped sister. The movie sets up Marvel's upcoming X-Men movie, which is due out in 2027. The post-credits scene also seems to set up Avengers: Secret Wars, which, if they directly adapt the Secret Wars comic, will put our favorite heroes on a terrible planet known as Battleworld. It's also worth noting Brand New Day has a 90% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a nearly perfect 98% audience score, making it the 11th highest-rated Marvel movie overall.

For more, check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, or, check out our guide to the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained.

We’ll never know the full extent of what stopped Mahershala Ali’s Blade movie from ever seeing the light of day, but the silver lining is that Marvel Studios' failed vampire entry instead gave us the Oscar-winner’s new one, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which has been a massive hit with critics.

In an interview with Deadline, Ali was asked just how much time he spent getting prepped to don the title of Daywalker and wield a sword like him, only for everything to turn to dust. "Oh, absolutely. For a year, yeah. A little more than a year. I'm actually really grateful. They helped pay for our movie, so thank you. I got to go train for a year, so at this point, I'm so grateful that they made a wonderful contribution to our film."

This contribution has certainly paid off, with the new movie from director Bassam Tariq (who was once set on helming Blade before leaving the project) sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. Their new action thriller from MGM Studios follows Latif (Ali), a religious hitman who is also a loyal and devoted father.

Unfortunately, these two worlds collide, forcing Latif to travel across Houston to try to keep his children safe and cutting down anyone who tries to stop him. Zachary Lee of The Wrap was blown away by the film, saying, "What Ali, Tariq and the collaborators have assembled feels not just like kismet but divinely ordained, as if this was the movie they were always meant to make."

Unfortunately, Ali has put a solid stake through any chance of returning to the MCU, with his only contribution being an off-screen appearance in Eternals and his likeness used in season 1 of Marvel Zombies. "I'm done. I'm doing this and anything moving forward," he confirmed. "I'm over that. I'm done with that."

There’s no question that Marvel Studios endured an array of blips trying to map out their universe in a post-Endgame era, but Blade always felt like the one that could’ve been so easily avoided. The signs were all there for a truly great addition to the MCU, and perhaps somewhere in the TVA offices, there’s a timeline where it actually worked out. Now, though, that particular comic book world is too focused on Doctor Doom and mutants making their appearance to make space for a vampire hunter.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother releases in theaters on September 25. For more, check out every other upcoming Marvel movie and show that we hope doesn’t go the way of Blade.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has conquered the box office this summer, and looks set to finish its theatrical run as the highest-grossing movie ever in the US. But despite the movie's extraordinary success, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO and Chairman Ravi Ahuja claims he doesn't yet know when Spider-Man 5 will swing into cinemas.

Speaking at a conference in New York, as reported by Variety, Ahuja discussed Brand New Day's record-breaking success at the box office – the extent of which was a surprise even to those at Sony. "We obviously hadn’t forecast that," Ahuja said. "We thought it would do incredibly well, but we didn’t know that would do that well."

It's fair to say most pundits expected Brand New Day to perform admirably at the box office, but the results have topped even the most optimistic forecasts, particularly given the recent superhero downswing and the fact that No Way Home featured three times as many Spider-Men; Brand New Day, comparatively, was far less of an event. Perhaps people were really curious about the identity of Sadie Sink's mystery character after all.

Ahuja has a theory about how and why Brand New Day massively overachieved. "The movie itself is very emotional… So a little bit different to what some of the more recent superhero movies have been. Still very much a superhero movie – there are a lot of big action scenes. It’s a lot of fun. But it’s emotional. Some people come away crying, so that is something clearly that resonated with the audience."

As for when we'll see Spider-Man 5, Ahuja, unsurprisingly, didn't have a straight answer, confirming only what we already know: that the movie is currently undated. "We don’t have a date for it yet. A couple years usually, but there’s a Spider-Verse movie [Beyond the Spider-Verse] coming next year.” Ahuja's not wrong that it's "usually" been a couple of years between mainline Tom Holland Spider-Man movies; the home trilogy released on that schedule between 2017 and 2021. There was a five-year gap between No Way Home and Brand New Day, but hopefully the wait won't be quite as protracted this time round.

Absence clearly made the hearts of audiences grow fonder, however, as Brand New Day looks set to end its theatrical run as the third-highest-grossing movie ever, having recently swung past Avatar: The Way of Water on the all-time totals. It's also on track to pass Star Wars: The Force Awakens' domestic record, which has held firm for over a decade; unbeaten even by Avengers: Endgame.

Whether the next Marvel movie, Avengers: Doomsday, can come close to Brand New Day's record-smashing success remains to be seen. Though given Doomsday has already made over $40m on pre-sales alone with around 100 days till release, it's on track to do very well indeed.

For more, check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, our Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained, and our guide on how to watch Marvel movies in order.

After hitting the big screen this summer, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has become the second most successful superhero movie of all time, with many calling it the best Spider-Man movie since Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 2. But what makes it so special? Well, Sony executive Tom Rothman thinks he has the answer.

"The reason that movie has resonated all around the world is because it’s about a lonely guy," said the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group to Variety. "It’s about friendship. It’s very human. It’s very emotional. It’s got plenty of whiz-bang, but that’s not what the secret is. The secret is it’s a relatable story that almost everybody has related to." Rothman added that it's "not so much a superhero film, but a ‘super-person’ film."

Welcoming back Tom Holland as the web-slinging hero, Brand New Day picks up five years after Spider-Man: No Way Home, when Doctor Strange erased the whole world's memory of Spider-Man, and, in turn, Peter Parker. Without his girlfriend MJ and best friend Ned, Parker lives a lonely life where he has no choice but to throw himself into full-time crime-fighting while his loved ones live their best lives at university. Parker doesn't even have Aunt May or Tony Stark to turn to.

Of course, the MCU has explored human struggle before, but Brand New Day really hits the nail on the head when it comes to the transition from high school to adult life. Although we cannot relate to the weight of responsibility that comes with Spider-Man's great power, we can all see ourselves in Parker. We are flung from comfort into adulthood, and not knowing your place in the world can be very isolating and scary. This is explored with Sadie Sink's Jean Grey too, whose yearning for family causes her to turn New York City on its head.

Brand New Day is approaching its sixth week in theaters, after premiering on July 29 in the UK and July 31 in the US. So far, the movie has earned a whopping $2.4 billion worldwide, as per Box Office Mojo, making it the second most successful superhero movie of all time. Avengers: Endgame still holds that title with $2.8 billion. However, Brand New Day remains in cinemas, so Spidey still has time to take the crown.

For more, check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, our Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained, and our guide on how to watch Marvel movies in order.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now the biggest Marvel movie at the US box office, knocking Avengers: Endgame down to second place.

Per Collider, Brand New Day has earned $855 million at the domestic box office, and is set to pass Avengers: Endgame, which has an overall domestic gross of $858 million, by midweek.

Endgame still holds the title for highest-grossing Marvel movie of all time, as it has a global gross of $2.8 billion. Brand New Day currently sits at $2.2 billion.

The new film, which takes place four years after the events Spider-Man: No Way Home, sees a pretty lonely Peter Parker obsessively check in on Ned and MJ while doing his daily Spider-Man duties. When a new, seemingly undefeatable threat hits New York City, Peter is forced to confront his past... and maybe finally heal. Brand New Day has a 90% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a nearly perfect 98% audience score.

We may not see Spidey again until Avengers: Secret Wars, given that it's the Secret Wars comic book arc that introduces the alien symbiote known as Venom and gives Peter that snazzy black Spidey suit (that we haven't seen since Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3). Though, he could always pop up in Avengers: Doomsday, especially given the fact that nearly every Marvel hero to ever exist is making an appearance.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now. For more, check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, or, check out our guide to the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day's spectacular run at the box office continues, as the MCU movie has hit a major milestone after less than a month in theaters.

Over the weekend, Brand New Day crossed the $2 billion at the global box office. As well as being an enormous sum of money, this is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's already topped Spider-Man: No Way Home which, lest we forget, featured three Spider-Men (Spider-Mans?) and served as the climax of the 'home' trilogy – an impressive feat in its own right.

Secondly, that puts a top 3 finish at the all-time global box office in sight. The number to beat is $2.3 billion, which is the lifetime gross of current bronze medal winner Avatar: The Way of Water. That seems very achievable given Brand New Day added $70 million to it's box office total in the US alone this past weekend. A second place finish is far less likely, as it would need to top Avengers: Endgame's enormous $2.79 billion, but don't count Spidey out…

Spider-Man: Brand New day has had an extraordinary start at the box office, and even topped Avengers: Endgame's record-breaking opening weekend in the US. At this rate, it's likely to become the highest grossing film of all time at the domestic box office, with Star Wars: The Force Awakens final total of $936 million already within reach.

At this past weekend's D23, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige explained the ethos behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day's record-breaking success, saying they couldn't go "bigger" than No Way Home, so they went "deeper" instead. Cleary it was a decision that paid off. Feige also claimed that the introduction of X-Men's Jean Grey in Brand New Day wasn't about universe building, but "came out of the story." Jean Grey will next be seen in Marvel's X-Men movie, whose cast was announced live on stage during the Disney Entertainment Showcase panel.

As for the upcoming Marvel movies and shows, up next are WandaVision trilogy closer VisionQuest on Disney Plus (which got a first trailer at D23) and, on the big screen, Avengers: Doomsday, which dropped a new special look at the semi-regular celebration of all things Disney.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now. For more, check out our guide to watching the Marvel movies in order, or check out our breakdown of the mysterious Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits scene.

Lanterns co-creators Damon Lindelof and Tom King say they made sure to depict Hal Jordan and John Stewart's comic book origins in a way that honors various Green Lantern comic book writers, rather than one that relies on fan service.

"It transcends the idea of doing fan service to say that there's certain aspects of the canon that are essential," Lindelof tells GamesRadar+, when it comes to deciding how to work Hal Jordan and John Stewart's various comic book origin stories into the new show. "And you have to kinda throw them in the blender when you're making your smoothie. But at the same time, when you drink the smoothie, you can add one flavor too many, and it becomes overwhelming, or two flavors aren't necessarily combining in a good way."

"So I think that you put everything out on the table and you say these are the things that make John Stewart a legacy character. These are the things that make Hal Jordan a legacy character," adds Lindelof. "These are different stories about how they got the ring. These are different stories about adventures that they went on as Green Lanterns. And, and then you educate yourself, and then you know it all. And then you kind of, like, have to put all of that stuff away and start over and say, 'What's the story that we wanna tell?'"

Lanterns is a True Detective-esque take on Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), who find themselves embroiled in a mystery set in rural Rushville, Nebraska. In the show, Hal is Earth's first Green Lantern (though technically Alan Scott was the first human to wear the Green Lantern moniker in the comics), though he wasn't chosen first (and we'll let you watch the show to learn more about that lest we spoil it). John Stewart is his trainee, and the two have a mutual respect but otherwise resentment toward one another. John's backstory has been retconned a few times throughout DC comic history, though the show honors his later origin story as a US Marine.

The series also works backwards, giving us Hal and Jordan's present-day dilemmas before going into how their partnership came to be, and effectively adapting the Green Lantern comic Beware My Power which introduced John to the world back in 1972.

"From a comic book nerd, which I say proudly, point of view, you know...two different characters have very different sort of comic book histories," King says. "Hal has been very consistent in his origin stories over, over the years since, like, the early '60s when he was born. Um, John has not been consistent, and sort of rewritten and redone and not just in this medium. You know, a lot of John's origin story comes from what Dwayne McDuffie did in the Justice League, in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon."

Continues King: "But if you look at it, look at it closely and go back to those origins, you see, like, John's first appearance with Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil, there is that idea that he is chosen, and He will not accept the Lantern world that's given to him, and Hal is a little resentful of that and is rebellious against that. That's all in his first issue. And then if you look at what Dwayne did in the cartoon, that idea of sort of a military guy who's been under such pressure his whole life and has so much emotion that he has to sort of suppress, that's all in there. So it was bringing out the visions of those creators and bringing them into this world."

Lanterns is streaming now on HBO Max. For more, check out our Lanterns review, or stay up to date with our Lanterns release schedule. For more, check out our list of upcoming DC movies and shows.

Lanterns showrunner and co-creator Chris Mundy says the new DC show is meant to suspend disbelief and put you in the middle of a thrilling murder-mystery.

"That was totally the goal," Mundy tells GamesRadar+, when asked whether the goal was to get the viewer completely locked in to the point where they forget they're watching a superhero show. "When I first talked to James Hawes about directing, he was in London, so it was on Zoom, and it seemed like we all kind of matched up in the way we would wanna do it. One of the first things he said was, like, 'We have to talk about flying.' He's like, 'I don't know if I'm gonna direct this, depending on what the flying is,' you know? And, and we wanted everything to feel like it was of the world. So okay, if this really happens, how does it work? What's the relationship to the ground around him and the people around him?"

The new series is a True Detective-esque mystery thriller that sees Green Lantern Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and his trainee John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) end up in rural Rushville, Nebraska, where an otherworldly mystery is brewing. It's tonally different than anything we've seen in the DCU just yet, and isn't afraid to bring darker themes and senseless violence to the forefront.

One of my favorite things about the show is how normal the usually over-the-top superhero elements feel, which include the aforementioned flying and even the fact that the Green Lantern ring itself needs to be charged like an iPhone. Unlike the super fans we see crowding around in masks and other homemade merch in the Marvel world, the citizens in Lanterns are mostly unfazed by Hal Jordan being the "guardian" of Earth, and don't see why a local cop couldn't do just as good of a job when it comes to solving a mystery.

Continues Mundy: "If you're gonna do something that has a fantastical element, but you're trying to tell a real story, it's like, what would that actually be like if it existed? Instead of it being hyperreal, you know? So, everything was very intentional. I mean, we had more meetings than you could ever imagine about every tiny detail in terms of the world, and the look, and the feel, and the texture of things, you know?

Lanterns is streaming now on HBO Max. For more, check out our Lanterns review, or stay up to date with our Lanterns release schedule.

The DCU is making some changes to its previously announced roster, and this reportedly includes scrapping Waller and Paradise Lost.

According to The Ankler, Waller and Paradise Lost are "both dead at DC, which also heard pitches for series built around Poison Ivy and Catwoman, though DC/HBO passed on both projects." Though Booster Gold was hit with cancellation rumors, the show "remains in development, and a search for a new writer is underway."

Waller was first announced as part of DCU's 'Chapter One,' when James Gunn and Peter Safran took control of DC Studios in 2023. The series, starring Viola Davis's Amanda Waller, was set to pick up after the events of Peacemaker season 2. Back in February 2025, Safran said that scripts "still haven't been able to land," which didn't bode well for future announcements.

Paradise Lost was also announced as part of the initial slate, and was described by Safran as a "Game of Thrones-ish story about Themyscira," the home of the Amazons and birthplace of Wonder Woman. The two projects join The Authority, which was also scrapped back in April.

In some positive news, a co-showrunner has reportedly already been hired for Lanterns season 2... which hits HBO Max on August 16.

For more, check out our list of upcoming DC movies and shows.

The Incredible Hulk is the unquestionable dark sheep of the MCU, so much so that it saw star Edward Norton replaced by Mark Ruffalo as the MCU's Bruce Banner till this day. But it could have been very different, as Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier has confirmed there's a "longer" and "darker" cut of the movie, featuring even more MCU cameos.

Speaking to Collider about his new Netflix horror The Last House (which our favorite movie critic Hideo Kojima recently compared to Death Stranding), Leterrier not only confirmed the existence of an (even) darker extended cut, but also teased a major Marvel cameo, in addition to Tony Stark's appearance in the film's post-credits scene.

"There's a darker cut," Leterrier said. "Longer, obviously. It's not an hour, but it's very interesting because The Incredible Hulk was the first movie sort of starting the MCU. So there were all these ideas that started many of the stories you're following now, and that was in The Incredible Hulk."

Iron Man technically kickstarted the MCU, but The Incredible Hulk quickly followed. Released barely 6 weeks after Iron Man in the summer of 2008, both movies were made concurrently and could be considered the twin building blocks of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While Norton would never return, many elements from The Incredible Hulk have recurred over the years, including William Hurt's Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross playing a key role in Captain America: Civil War and Abomination popping up in She-Hulk and Shang-Chi. 2025's Captain America: Brave New World even served as something of a pseudo-sequel to The Incredible Hulk, with Tim Blake Nelson's Leader returning to cause trouble some 17 years later.

Leterrier doesn't go into much detail about the footage actually shot and left on the cutting room floor. But he does reveal one sequence, which never made it in front of cameras, was set to feature none other than Steve Rogers, two years before Chris Evans was cast as the MCU's first Captain America.

"It was a little ahead of its time, so we didn't [shoot] it. But Captain America was in it," Leterrier said. "Tony Stark was in it – he's still in it. And the opening was actually quite interesting. It was set in the North Pole. It was cool. A little too dark." As for whether The Incredible Hulk deleted scenes will ever see the light of day, Leterrier notes that: "Some got out, some are still to be shown." Maybe one day, the MCU's least-loved movie will be redeemed.

Things are certainly looking up for the MCU of late. Following a post-Endgame slump, Marvel Studios is back on top following the release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is well on track to make over $2 billion at the box office and become one of the highest-grossing films of all time. Up next on the big screen is Avengers: Doomsday, with news expected at Marvel's D23 panels this Friday.

For more on the MCU, check out our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order, and our list of all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows.

New DCU movie Supergirl has officially finished its worldwide theatrical run, and its total gross is the lowest for any DC movie in decades.

Supergirl has ended its global theatrical run at $125.8 million worldwide, as per Box Office Mojo. That's over $45 million lower than 2022 DC flop Morbius, which earned $167 million, and $83 million less than Joker 2.

In fact, Supergirl marks the lowest box office return for any DC movie since Catwoman in 2004, which earned $82 million. But that was over 20 years ago, so considering inflation, Supergirl fared far worse.

This isn't a huge surprise, as Supergirl has struggled on screen from the very start. The movie opened to $37.1 million in the US and just over $62 million globally. But the Woman of Tomorrow adaptation failed to grow from that point on, seeing massive dips week by week. In the end, Supergirl only managed to scrape in total what last year's Superman made on opening weekend alone last year.

The movie marks a financial loss for DC Studios, as it cost around $170 million to make and perhaps tens of millions more to market. Worse yet, Supergirl is only the second movie in James Gunn's new DCU, following last year's Superman, which made more during its first weekend on screen than Supergirl did in its entire run. Superman went on to gross over $618 million worldwide.

It is not clear why the movie flopped so hard. Starring Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, Supergirl follows the titular hero as she puts her partying days behind her to help a new friend seek revenge on the same villain responsible for harming her dog, Krypto. The movie opened to mixed reviews and a 56% score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is not so bad when compared to Morbius' 15% score.

However, in June, DC Studios co-head Peter Safran told The New York Times that although Supergirl's opening was disappointing, the team remains "confident" in their overall strategy. DCU Chapter One: Gods and Monsters continues this year both on the small screen with Lanterns this August, and on the big screen with Clayface this October.

For more, check out our Supergirl review and keep up with upcoming DC movies and shows.

Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton has doubled down on his previous comments about the state of the industry regarding Shang-Chi 2's very delayed status.

“When you really look at what happened to the industry, at least from my perspective, it was just like everything went to shit after that," Cretton told TheWrap. "I feel like if Marvel was where it was before, we would have had maybe two sequels already. Who knows?"

Cretton previously told Deadline's Crew Call Podcast that a sequel to the beloved 2021 film was still on the way, but that it's the post-pandemic nature of the industry that has put something of a blocker on it. Cretton himself has also been a bit busy directing Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is already breaking some box office records.

The film stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, a martial arts master who is forced to confront the past he thought he left behind when he becomes involved with the mysterious Ten Rings organization. It's also worth noting that Shang-Chi hasn't appeared in any other movies or in a Disney Plus series, which made fans pretty worried about the sequel's fate until it was announced that Shang-Chi would star in Avengers: Doomsday. He can also be seen facing off with Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler in the trailer.

Shang-Chi 2 does not yet have a release date. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now. Avengers: Doomsday hit theaters on December 18. For more, check out our guide on how to watch the Spider-Man movies in order, and keep up with upcoming Marvel movies.

As Marvel superheroes go, Spider-Man has suffered a lot more than most. Aside from losing Tony Stark and Aunt May in the MCU, the death of Uncle Ben is often the catalyst that's used to kickstart Peter Parker's entire hero's journey. But through it all, Spider-Man has always remained true to himself, unwaveringly optimistic in the face of loss.

That's his whole schtick really, this resilience that helps carry Spidey through his darkest moments. But Spider-Man: Brand New Day pushes the limits of that more than ever before, not through the death of another loved one but because of an even crueller twist that our hero might never recover from.

At the end of the previous film, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange made everyone forget who Peter Parker is. This spell was needed to help save the day, but that hasn't made it any easier for Peter, who's been forced to live the last four years in solitude.

By the time Brand New Day begins, MJ has moved on with a new boyfriend, still unable to remember that Peter was once the love of her life. Peter remembers, though, haunted by the knowledge that they can never be together again. Or can they?

When Jean Grey discovers Spider-Man's true identity, she threatens to take control of MJ's mind and use her against him, as she has so many other people already. Terrified for MJ's safety, Peter races across town and whisks her away somewhere safe.

Once it seems like the coast is clear, the pair discuss what's going on. Spider-Man tries to explain why MJ is being targeted without giving away who he really is, but talk inevitably turns to their history together. It's as if MJ is on the cusp of remembering, something Peter and we feel when she pulls up the bottom of his mask to take a closer look at him.

In a scene reminiscent of that iconic upside-down snog from 2002's Spider-Man, the pair smooch and embrace. True love's kiss seems to have broken the spell at last and Peter couldn't be happier. That is, until MJ starts describing herself in the third person as they embrace…

Web of deceit

Yep, it turns out Jean has been controlling MJ this entire time just to mess with him, even going so far as to kiss him knowing how much it will hurt.

It's one thing to possess the woman Peter loves, but it's another thing entirely to trick him in such a way. Realising that MJ doesn't remember him after all, that he's no better off than he was four years ago when the spell was first cast, is devastating for Peter in ways Marvel rarely attempts. And to top it all off, Jean then rubs salt in the wound by revealing Peter is never in MJ's thoughts at all.

The scene ends with Jean forcing MJ to jump off the roof, but it's the deceit that hurts most. Spider-Man was always going to catch her in time, but the impact of this cruel twist can't be undone in quite the same way.

During a brief moment of respite, MJ later finds a letter that Peter wrote but never gave to her, one which explains the spell's impact in full and his undying love for her. She quickly confronts him, upset that he didn't give the letter to her himself years earlier.

Peter explains that he was only trying to protect MJ before going on to admit that he still loves her, that she's still everything to him and always will be. But MJ is unable to say any of this back to Peter. She understands why the girl in the letter loved him so much, but she is no longer that girl.

"I don’t love you," says MJ, adding, "I don't even know you."

What Jean did earlier was incredibly sadistic, but the words that come out of MJ's mouth now are even more gut-wrenching – and that's because they're actually true. She really doesn't love him anymore. Sure, the spell's to blame, but the impact is very much the same. Peter is heartbroken beyond measure, experiencing a new kind of loss that tears him apart at the seams.

Poetry in emotion

Both of these scenes hit incredibly hard for us too. After watching this pair fall for each other these past nine years, seeing MJ reject Peter like this is really tough to see. Any breakup would be bad enough, but this is even worse because of how unfair it feels. They should be together, yet they can't be, all because Peter had to make a sacrifice for the greater good.

Such emotional storytelling is still a rarity in the MCU. Some moments have hit hard, of course, but most of them usually revolve around the concept of death. Yondu's funeral, Vision's love persevering, Spidey's own "death" at the end of Avengers: Infinity War… Death is par for the course when it comes to superheroes who risk their lives every day, so these recurring themes are to be expected. What isn't expected is just how gut-wrenching this film's emotional beats are with nary a death in sight.

The circumstances might be fantastical, but the feelings involved are rooted in feelings of loss and rejection that anyone watching can relate to. It helps that Tom Holland has never been better as Spider-Man than he is in these moments, and Zendaya continues to be pitch-perfect too in her delivery, firm in her feeling with a hint of melancholy that comes with knowing the pain her words will cause.

Loss and how Peter keeps fighting despite it remains the driving force, but in unexpected ways that avoid recycling past stories in favour of something new. More than Aunt May's death, more even than Peter saying goodbye to MJ at the end of No Way Home, it's in the pain of these evolving relationship dynamics where Brand New Day sets itself apart as Spidey's most mature MCU outing yet.

What remains to be seen is whether Peter can weather the storm long enough for MJ to return to him. The end of the film hints that this might be possible, especially when we see her holding the same necklace Peter gifted her in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Still, true love might not be enough to break the spell, especially with Doomsday and Secret Wars looming on the horizon.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now. For more, check out the breakdown of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending and our ranking of the best Spider-Man movies.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has arrived, and maybe you're being completely and totally normal about it. Or, maybe you're like me, and the potential storylines that could come next for Spider-Man 5 and beyond are keeping you up at night à la the Charlie Day red-string meme from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Because Spider-Man: Brand New Day picks up the pieces from No Way Home quite nicely and also leaves several open paths for what could happen next to Tom Holland's Spider-Man, I've dusted off my comic book collection and put together a list of potential plot theories for Spidey's future in the MCU. Some are a little far-fetched, and others make a whole lot of sense (to me, anyway). From Peter teaming up with another Spider-Man, who isn't Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield, to what could happen in Jake Schrier's upcoming X-Men movie... I've speculated about it all below.

But be warned: there are major spoilers below. When you're done, check out our list of 43 Spider-Man: Brand New Day Easter eggs.

Ned Leeds becomes the Hobgoblin

Hear me out: this is set up in Spider-Man: No Way Home as a potential future storyline, and then made all the more valid following Ned's graduation from MIT in Brand New Day.

In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tobey Maguire's Peter 2 tells Ned that his best friend died in his arms after trying to kill him. This is in reference to the events of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3, which saw Peter's best friend Harry Osborn decide to avenge his father's death and become the second iteration of the Green Goblin (to which Andrew Garfield's Peter 3 nods, as a similar storyline followed in The Amazing Spider-Man 2). Ned then looks at Tom Holland's Peter and promises that he will never, ever, turn into a villain and try to kill his best friend.

Two things to note here: 1) After Doctor Strange's spell, Peter isn't Ned's best friend anymore, and 2) in the comics, Ned Leeds is revealed to be the Hobgoblin, a wannabe Green Goblin who manages to get his hands on Norman Osborn's Goblin Formula and tech with the intention of killing Spider-Man.

Would there need to be a Norman Osborn or Oscorp on Earth-616 to make this work? Well, the big evil tech corporation job that MJ turned down in Brand New Day sure did sound a bit like Oscorp... so there is that possibility. But no, we wouldn't necessarily need existing Goblin tech for Ned to become the Hobgoblin, because he's smart enough to develop the tech himself. The Spidey Tracker that Ned invents is next-level surveillance tech that is even able to track Spidey on another planet. That alone tells me that ol' Ned could whip up some seriously scary technology with the right (or wrong) resources.

Miles Morales is the Spider-Man tracked "off-planet"

In that brief post-credits scene, we see a close-up of Ned's Spidey Tracker. The tracker shows Spidey on a planet that goes far beyond the moon of Earth-616, and registers his status as "off-planet." There are two reasons why I think this could very well be Miles Morales, and, once again, the first occurs in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Towards the end of No Way Home, Electro (Jamie Foxx) finally sees the Spidey from his universe, Andrew Garfield, unmasked. In a sweet and funny moment, Electro says, "You're from Queens, you got that suit, you help poor people... I just thought you was gonna be black." Garfield's Spidey immediately apologizes, to which Electro says, "There's gotta be a black Spider-Man out there somewhere." Because this is the movie that cracked open the multiverse, this scene alone meant a live-action Miles movie was absolutely possible.

The second reason is the simple fact that Kevin Feige recently confirmed that they were working on a live-action Miles Morales movie.

It's also possible that this interplanetary Spider-Man could be Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield (though Garfield laughed and said he had absolutely no idea when asked about this by ScreenRant). It could also, perhaps, be the planet Battleworld... which is where all the heroes of Earth-616 are sent to fight to the death by the Beyonder, and is the central location of the Avengers: Secret Wars comics... which serve as the basis for the upcoming movie of the same name... but the planet is supposed to be much further out than what we see on the Spidey Tracker, so anything is possible, really.

Peter Parker encounters the alien symbiote in Avengers: Secret Wars

Whether Tom Holland wants to admit it on a podcast or not, Avengers: Secret Wars is the comic book arc that introduces the alien symbiote that gives Spidey his iconic black suit and eventually attaches itself to Eddie Brock, who indeed becomes Venom. In Secret Wars #8, Peter Parker encounters the alien symbiote, which drops into his hand and spreads over his entire body, turning his costume black and white. It isn't until The Amazing Spider-Man #300 that the symbiote returns and attaches itself to scorned journalist Eddie Brock while he's sitting in a church asking God to forgive him for being awful to Spider-Man (much like that popularly memed scene from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 that sees Topher Grace sitting in the pews asking God to kill Spider-Man, though not as funny).

While the black suit and the introduction of Venom are an important part of Secret Wars, the overall arc sees the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and more trapped on a planet known as Battleworld, where they're forced to fight the villains of that planet essentially to the death. It'll be the most ambitious MCU adaptation for sure (but I do really want to see Holland's Spidey in that suit).

Spider-Man is indirectly responsible for the creation of anti-mutant technology

Peter is sort of directly responsible... though the inhibitor wasn't made with ill intentions. In the comics, an anti-mutant device known as an inhibitor collar pops up in X-Men #141. The collar, created by mutant-killing military scientist Bolivar Trask, was placed around the neck of any mutant who was wrongfully thrown into the South Bronx Mutant Containment Center as part of the passing of an unjust law known as the Mutant Registration Act. The inhibitor collar prevents mutants and any super-powered beings from using their powers.

In Brand New Day, Peter develops the technology with the intention to control his own rapidly changing powers, while also knowing that it can be used on just about any being with powers. He attempts to attach it to the Hulk, but no dice. He successfully attaches it to Jean Grey, whom he turns over to Bill Metzger under the guise of 'doing the right thing.' We see Bill and his cronies use it as a way to subdue Jean in order to experiment on her, and we never see it again after Spidey is shot and Jean is rescued. We also never see Bill again, either.

It's important to note that the Department of Damage Control was using tech from captured/defeated villains, such as Shocker, to develop weaponry that can take down super-powered beings. You might recall that they used Shocker's arm console to develop guns that have the power to dissolve Peter's artificial webbing. It's likely that Bill and his cronies took the inhibitor technology and are hiding out somewhere... and that this will all be revisited in the upcoming standalone X-Men movie.

Spider-Man teams up with the X-Men

Think of it this way: if Peter was able to invent the inhibitor, the X-Men might need his help in order to destroy or reverse it. There's also the fact that Spider-Man and the X-Men have teamed up several times throughout comic book history, including one specific arc where Spider-Man and Jean Grey work together at the X-Mansion to mentor young mutants.

But there's also a chance (hear me out) that Spider-Man could be teaming up with the X-Men to take down Dark Phoenix... which is the supervillain Jean Grey turns into after being overwhelmed by her own powers and manipulated by Mastermind. The ending of Brand New Day does imply that Jean is on a bus headed upstate to the X-Men mansion (which also implies that the X-Men haven't even been formed as a team yet) and is therefore about to learn how to use her powers correctly and for good. But because we've already seen just how powerful she is and what evil she's capable of right off the bat, it wouldn't surprise me if the MCU decided to go ahead and adapt the Dark Phoenix Saga.

Dark Phoenix aside, Jean has always been morally gray in the comics (from killing Rogue to making Cyclops kill Professor X), but introducing a founding member of the X-Men into the MCU as a supervillain was a choice... and one they might decide to go a bit deeper with.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now. For more on the MCU, here's our guide to how to watch all the Marvel movies in order.

Kevin Feige has acknowledged that last summer's Fantastic Four: First Steps underperformed.

The film was released in July 2025 and grossed $521.9 million worldwide, despite being billed as a major Marvel blockbuster and including a post-credits scene that directly set up Avengers: Doomsday.

"Many things can be true at once," Feige told Variety, when asked if Marvel's recent misfires were a sign audiences are tiring of the same story. "I think last year's Fantastic Four looked and sounded like nothing that had been done in a superhero movie before, and it only [grossed] $521 million."

Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in comparison, has beaten Avengers: Endgame's record for the biggest domestic opening of all time and currently sits at $932 million worldwide – after just one weekend.

"Brand New Day is very directly a part four. It picks up right after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home and yet it tells a story that resonates. It's ultimately about loneliness and the dangers of staying in our apartments by ourselves, looking at our phones. That resonates across cultures and across the globe right now," Feige explained.

The Fantastic Four box office was made even more disappointing by the fact that it grossed less than Superman, which also released in July 2025 and ultimately made $618.7 million. However, this year's Supergirl flopped at the box office and currently sits at a global total of just under $126 million.

But we'll soon see Marvel's First Family again in Doomsday. Pedro Pascal's Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby's Sue Storm, Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Ben Grimm, and Joseph Quinn's Johnny Storm are all returning, though plot details are thin on the ground at the moment.

Brand New Day is in theaters now, while Doomsday arrives this December 18. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows for everything else that's on the way.

The team behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day have been taking a well-earned victory lap in the press over the last 24 hours, after it was confirmed that the new Marvel Phase 6 movie topped Avengers: Endgame at the box office in the US on its opening weekend. But amidst the congratulatory back-slapping, director Destin Daniel Cretton revealed a key tidbit from production that goes a long way to explaining why Tom Holland is the perfect Spider-Man.

Warning: spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day follow.

During a conversation with Deadline, Cretton revealed that the very first dramatic scene shot captured for the movie was the moment where Peter Parker brings flowers to Aunt May's grave. At the end of a long day (if you'll recall, Peter visits the grave multiple times across the film), as they were about to wrap, Cretton decided to shoot an unplanned version, in case it was needed for the end of the movie. Holland was mic'd up, and improvised the line "You'd be happy to know that I've decided I'm not going to do this alone anymore" on the spot, according to Cretton.

"That statement became the north star of the entire movie," Cretton said. "Now it feels obvious that's where the movie was always headed, but at the time we shot it, we didn't really have that simple core idea yet. We worked backward from that point and realized, 'That's where we're going.' To me, that's the entire movie right there." It's proof, were it needed, that Holland knows his Peter Parker better than anyone (and that maybe he'll make a great screenwriter one day).

Spider-Man: Brand New Day got off to a record-breaking start at the box office this weekend, pulling in some $932 million worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing opening weekend of all time globally, behind Avengers: Endgame's untouchable $1.2 billion. And that was without an IMAX bump, as Spider-Man: Brand New Day is only set to share the biggest screens going with The Odyssey from August 7.

Now that the various cats are out of the bag when it comes to the fourth, secret-shrouded Holland Spidey movie, Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige and co have been speaking more freely about the movie's many surprises. Feige even revealed that the film's misunderstood villain, Jean Grey, was instead originally "a very obscure character nobody has ever heard of." A prop modeller on the film also explained where those Mister Negative rumors came from.

Next up for Marvel Studios are VisionQuest on the small screen, and make-or-break team-up movie Avengers: Doomsday on the big screen. Though, as far as we're aware, Tom Holland's Spider-Man won't show up in either. The Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits scene may offer a few clues about when he'll next swing onto screens.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now in theaters. For more on-screen secrets, zip on over to our essential guide on Spider-Man: Brand New Day Easter eggs, or dive into our full Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained guide.

The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield would return as his webslinging hero – on one condition.

"I don't know. I really don't know," Garfield told The Playlist's The Discourse podcast, when asked what another Spidey project would need to offer for him to return.

"I would need it to be very, very odd. I would need it to be very strange, and I would need it to be completely unconventional and almost – I wouldn't say boring – but I would want it to be just completely unexpected, like a genre of Spider-Man that you've never seen before, that feels very left field," he continued.

Garfield returned for Spider-Man: No Way Home thanks to some multiversal shenanigans (alongside Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker), but he hasn't been seen in the MCU since.

"And I don’t even know what that would be," Garfield added. "Maybe like a road trip movie."

While Garfield might not be making his return as Peter Parker anytime soon, though, you can currently see Tom Holland's Spidey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is in theaters now.

"Taking Spidey back to web-slinging basics, Tom Holland's fourth solo outing as Spider-Man is a blast, with personal stakes to match its evolved spectacle. It's the Multiverse Saga's best movie… at least until Doomsday," reads our 4-star Spider-Man: Brand New Day review.

Next up for Marvel on the big screen is Avengers: Doomsday, which arrives this December 18. In the meantime, check out our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order to get up to date.

Rumors were rife that Spider-Man: Brand New Day would finally bridge a divide that fans have been waiting decades to heal between the MCU and the former Fox X-Men, as speculation swirled around Sadie Sink playing a familiar red-headed hero.

Yet, even as the Sadie Sink reveal played out in the cinema, I stifled a small squeal as Peter's facial recognition from his AI-sidekick EV revealed her to be none other than Jean Grey. Sure, we'd had a brief post-credit scene after The Marvels when Monica Rambeau wakes up in an alternative universe with Beast looking after her, and the mayhem of cameos in Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness (which the less said about the better), but nothing longer-lasting than a brief dopamine fix of seeing a surprise character cameo.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day collides two universes with such ease that you wonder if they always co-existed together. Director Destin Daniel Cretton has ensured that first and foremost this feels like a quintessential Spider-Man film, reminiscent more of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's maturer take on the web-headed hero than the vigorous, quippy teenage version that Tom Holland has become known for. As much as the slow-motion swings, on-the-fly jokes, and identity crisis about who he is behind the mask feel inherently Spider-Man, Brand New Day also doubles as a great X-Men film.

No inhibitions

After an immense period of isolation following the trauma of losing Aunt May and having his identity wiped from the memory of everyone he's ever loved, Peter's spidey-senses become more unreliable. Blackouts, headaches, and destructive behaviour follow as his mutation develops and interrupts his friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man routine. His body's physical reaction to the burnout that comes from never switching off causes his DNA to mutate to become more spider than human, as his arachnid hormones spike. Similar to the plot of many of the X-Men films, Peter now has to decide whether to embrace this darker, less inhibited version of his powers, or to suppress them, control them in an effort to go back to 'normal.' Or as normal as a man who can crawl around the ceiling in a lycra onesie can be.

To begin with, Peter attempts to fix the problem in a Tony Stark-like way by building an inhibitor that will decrease his spider hormones and control his DNA from mutating any further. Despite warnings from Bruce Banner about the dangers of this technology – which could be used to control any enhanced individual (and may be setting up a future X-Men movie) – Peter builds his own means of genetic silencing to cure the parts of his abilities that he doesn't like, namely its self-destructive, primal animalistic side.

The inhibitor is reminiscent of Agents of Shield, where a device was used to control Daisy, aka Quake's, powers to prevent her from imploding the Earth. As opposed to simply copying the plot of X-Men with a serum that cures enhanced individuals, this scientific approach feels far more suited to the former aspiring MIT student.

Back in the Fox days, Magneto's biggest concern was humans creating cures for mutants to not only muzzle their powers but get rid of them entirely, out of fear and prejudice. It comes up time and time again in the X-Men prequels, too, that the biggest threat to mutants (apart from the in-fighting about whether to trust or fear humans) is experimentation on them to create a cure or inhibitor that would stop them from simply existing as themselves.

Mutant mayhem

In the Avengers universe, Peter wouldn't be called a mutant, just superhuman, as he wasn't born with a genetic mutation. But, of course, just like Jean, he is a mutant. Half spider, half human, an individual who is special with powers that other people don’t understand and can fear and want to control. Part of the reason that Jean seamlessly slots into this world is that she’s almost a mirror to Peter.

Peter has to go on his own journey to realise that Jean, as powerful and dangerous as she is, is being exploited simply because she's different. To begin with, this ignorance of the suffering that mutants can face (Mysterio incident aside, he's always been celebrated as one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes) leads Peter to trust the suave director of Damage Control and use his universal inhibitor as a means to stop the supposed baddie, Jean.

Instead, in true X-Men style, the department experiments on Jean in the hopes of manipulating her powers to replicate them and turn regular individuals into telepathic weapons of destruction. In the MCU, we've briefly seen experimentation on Bucky, but this weaponising of superpowers, whatever the cost, is a trope predominantly seen in the X-Men universe.

In the end, Peter learns to embrace what makes him special, as it's a gift, not a curse – a relatable message that comes through time and time again in the X-Men comics and films. Jean feels fully integrated into this universe, an equal and mirror to Peter's own suffering, as they both have to learn to live after immense trauma. And come to terms with the darker, more unyielding depths of their powers that trigger after the devastating loss of people they love.

Alone together

Brand New Day pulls off a rare feat to be able to merge two existing franchises in a way that feels seamless and reminiscent of the crossovers in earlier Avengers movies. Jean also fits in with Peter, as she's a young mutant who is trying to come to terms with who she is outside of her powers and how she navigates this profound responsibility alone. All of which Peter can instinctively relate to, in a way other heroes might not.

The gradual introduction to characters from the wider Marvel canon also helps establish the dynamics and structures of this world ahead of Avengers: Doomsday. A major part of Marvel's shortcomings in the Multiverse Saga has been how disconnected the universe has become. So, it was a welcome change to see echoes of The Infinity Saga's approach to universe-building in Brand New Day. Naturally, Yelena would be concerned with 'big potato stuff' as part of the New Avengers, but is on hand to offer advice to the 'sad' Spider-Man when he stumbles across a potato that's slightly bigger than the 'small, baby' problems he's meant to be solving.

The film also naturally sets up the next film in the MCU slate, Avengers: Doomsday, as it starts to bring different heroes together – Yelena, Peter, Jean and Frank, aka The Punisher – as well as introducing a new technology that most likely will appear again in the future. If we learnt anything from Ultron, it's that even the smartest heroes, when desperate, will utilise questionable inventions to try and protect the Earth from alien invaders, such as the incoming storm with Doctor Doom.

Ultimately, Brand New Day should be used as the blueprint for future MCU crossovers as it merges multiple existing worlds, familiar storylines and characters to show how they co-exist together in one universe. In fact, they may be the only people who can truly understand the isolation, burden, and trauma that comes with being an enhanced individual in a society that fears anyone who is different.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now. For more, check out the breakdown of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending and our ranking of the best Spider-Man movies.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out, and we still don't know who Eman Esfandi is playing (aside from being MJ's new boyfriend, of course). Some fans believe they've figured it out, but given the new influx of wild fan theories... I'm not so sure.

Warning: Mild spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day below!

The common belief seems to be that Esfandi is playing Paul Rabin, who made his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 6 #1. One fan says that the open captions screenings of Spider-Man: Brand New Day list the actor's character name as Paul, though Esfandi is only listed as "The Boyfriend" in the movie's credits. Until we have public proof of this, however, all we can do is speculate.

In the comics, Peter and Mary Jane encounter Paul after entering his universe while fighting a villain known as the Emissary. Long story short, Mary Jane ends up accidentally sending Peter back to Earth-616 and ends up stuck with Paul for four whole years... and they end up adopting two children. Could Esfandi's new character be Paul?

Well, some other fans think MJ's new boyfriend is either Tarantula, or Boomerang. There's really no basis for either theory other than the characters have similar facial features to Esfandi, but one fan pointed out that there'd be some funny irony in MJ dating a "knock-off" version of Peter, seeing as Tarantula is more or less just that (though much scarier looking in appearance). Another theory, though not as popular, is that Esfandi is playing Harry Osborn (and that the job MJ turns down was indeed a position at OsCorp).

We're not sure if Marvel will go to Sadie Sink-levels of secrecy to keep the identity of Esfandi's character on the low... but a Paul confirmation could be coming our way sooner or later.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now. For more, check out our breakdowns of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending and Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits scene.

Mahershala Ali has finally spoken out about Marvel's failed Blade reboot, and he's over it.

"Not with me," Ali said when asked by GQ if Blade was still in the works. "No offense to them. I’ve been doing this professionally for pushing 30 years now, and one thing I’ve learned is that what is for you is for you and what is not is not. For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on."

The statement comes just days after Marvel boss Kevin Feige said he felt like a "gigantic loser and failure" for not getting the movie off the ground with Ali.

Continued Ali: "Again, you had me under contract, they have billions of dollars, if they wanted to do the movie, we would’ve done the movie. So we’re not doing the movie. I feel creatively redeemed on some level, just in my own journey between me, myself, and I. But I feel ready to move on from the Blade questions. Those questions are for them. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question."

To sum up the long and tumultuous saga: a new Blade movie, one that would introduce the half-vampire hero into the MCU, was announced at San Diego Comic Con in 2021 with two-time Academy Award winner Ali as the titular hero. Bassam Tariq was initially announced as director, but exited the film a month before production was set to begin in 2022 due to creative differences. Some of these creative differences were reportedly due to early scripts that had Blade filming an early 1900s period piece of sorts, rather than set in modern day or on Earth-616 (which is Marvel's main universe).

French filmmaker Yann Demange took over later that year, but production was halted once again due to the WGA strikes, which pushed its 2024 release date to 2025. In 2023, the film was given an (exciting) R rating. In 2024, it was officially removed from the Marvel release calendar.

Ali can be seen next in Tariq's Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which he said made good use of the swordsman skills he learned while shooting Blade.

For more, check out our guides to upcoming Marvel movies and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

The Batman 2 production designer Luke Hull has posted what appears to be a prop photo from the production of the DC sequel – and it may confirm the appearance of villains we've been dying to see on the big screen.

As you can see below, a complicated labyrinth structure has got tongues wagging among The Batman fandom.

The smart money, if this is indeed related to The Batman 2, is about the Court of Owls, the shadowy protectors of Gotham who have pulled strings from the sidelines for centuries.

The first major appearance of the masked villains in Scott Snyder's Batman comics run culminated in Batman having to fight the group in a maze that looks eerily similar to the one presented here.

A coincidence? A tease? Whatever it is, it's proved the catalyst for speculation that the Court of Owls – perhaps the most-requested villains in a crowded field – are making their bow in The Batman 2.

Elsewhere, the layer of mystery surrounding the project's main players shows no signs of dissipating.

The Batman 2, recently delayed until 2028, includes Scarlett Johansson and Sebastian Stan among its newcomers, though there has been no concrete information about who they are playing just yet. Stan's new bald look, however, has led to talk he could be playing shaven-headed serial killer Victor Zsasz.

What is more certain is that The Batman 2 will look amazing – if Matt Reeves' snow-covered screentest is anything to go by.

The Batman 2, starring Robert Pattinson, Jeffrey Wright, and Andy Serkis, opens in cinemas on February 18, 2028.

For more, check out the upcoming DC movies currently in the works.

New Marvel movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day swung into cinemas last weekend to rave reviews from audiences and critics alike, including game developer slash Twitter film reviewer Hideo Kojima, who seems to heavily relate to Peter Parker's struggles.

"A lonely hero, a lonely Spidey, a lonely Peter Parker," begins Kojima's review on Twitter. "It was fresh and entertaining. Spider-Man has, up until now, generally wrapped up in trilogies as complete sets… This film continues both the cast and the story, but it's reset, depicting the loneliness and anguish of Peter, who's been left all alone. It can be seen as the start of a new series or as a continuation of the previous one. It's a pretty clever structure."

Kojima feels as though the fourquel's title Brand New Day attributes to the movie taking a risk at a time when "sincere filmmaking is starting to feel more and more precarious." But for Kojima, the new Spidey movie "puts the 'brand' of a major franchise series – which can't afford to fail – to the test with its 'new day'." Check out the full post below.

It seems as though many others share Kojima's sentiment. The new movie currently stands at an impressive 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and an even better 98% audience score. In our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, we call the Spidey installment "a blast, with personal stakes to match its evolved spectacle. It's the Multiverse Saga's best movie (yet)."

Brand New Day is predicted to gross just shy of $1 billion. It looks like it may achieve just that, as the movie has grossed $927 million so far worldwide after hitting US theaters on Friday, July 31, and international cinemas from July 29. In fact, Brand New Day has already beaten Avengers: Endgame in terms of Thursday night previews, and opened to the second-highest weekend ever in movie history. Endgame still holds that title, earning a whopping $1.2 billion during its first weekend on screen in 2019.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now. For more, check out our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order or all the Brand New Day Easter eggs and cameos.

A Spider-Man: Brand New Day designer has debunked one of its biggest villain rumors

Twitter user @WilliamD1123 – who appears to be assistant prop modeller William Osborne – responded to a fan enquiring about the devil symbols seen on tanks during filming of one action sequence.

At the time, it sparked intense debate over whether villain Mister Negative, perhaps best known to fans of Insomniac's Spider-Man Games, would rock up to face the webhead in New York.

Unfortunately for those hoping for at least a slight tease of what's to come down the line, its origins were surprisingly low-key and circumstantial.

"I can explain! The production designer requested some symbols to go on the tank, including a ‘devil’," the designer wrote on Twitter. "My colleague added the devil symbol to the tank, as well as a panther (I think)."

They cryptically added: "But that’s not the only time you see that devil symbol in the film…"

That's the only nod to Spider-Man's rogues' gallery hiding off-screen in a prop or two. As @WilliamD1123 pointed out elsewhere on Twitter, there are Easter eggs in the Empire State University lecture room, with one student plastering cartoonish stickers of Vulture, Green Goblin, and Mysterio on their laptop. The Spot – who has recently caused carnage in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – is also represented.

We did end up getting Jean Grey, so that's a fair trade. That's despite Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige being transparent about the fact that another, more obscure villain was considered before settling on Sadie Sink's mutant.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now in cinemas. For more on-screen secrets, zip on over to our essential guide on Spider-Man: Brand New Day Easter eggs.

Update: It's official – Spider-Man: Brand New Day had the biggest opening weekend of all time in the US, with final totals coming in at $360 million, just ahead of Avengers: Endgame's $357 million (not adjusted for inflation). That puts the final total for the weekend at a staggering $932 million worldwide. Thwip!

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has already swung into the record books. Not only has the fourth outing for Tom Holland's Peter Parker had one of the biggest box office opening weekends of all time globally, it may yet top Avengers: Endgame as the biggest opening weekend of all time domestically, once final numbers are in.

Per Box Office Mojo, the Marvel Phase 6 movie opened to a staggering $927 million globally. To put that into perspective, box office sensation The Odyssey is sitting on $911 million globally after three weekends. That total is still some way behind Avengers: Endgame's unfathomable $1.2 billion global opening weekend haul – a record that may never be beaten – but is almost $300 million ahead of the previous number two, Avengers: Infinity War, which opened to $640 million in 2018.

Even more impressive, arguably, is that Brand New Day is on the cusp of topping Avengers: Endgame's all-time opening weekend record at the US box office. Current reports have Brand New Day at $355 million for the (long) weekend, some $2.1 million short of Avengers: Endgame's $357.1 million. Brand New Day's final total is almost certain to go up once final figures are accounted for, with some already suggesting it could come in at a record-setting $359 million.

Whichever way you swing it, Brand New Day has been a roaring success, and a much-needed win for both the beleaguered Marvel Studios and distributor Sony, whose Spider-Man extended universe was quietly shelved ahead of a planned reboot earlier this year. Perhaps they should have accelerated those plans to merge the two universes.

Brand New Day has also been a big hit with audiences and critics. Our own Spider-Man: Brand New Day review calls it: "Marvel Studios' strongest standalone outing since Avengers: Endgame." The movie is currently sitting on a very respectable 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. The question now is: where does Spider-Man go from here? The Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits scene may offer a few clues on that front.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now. For a full deep dive, check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained, and our list of 43 Spider-Man: Brand New Day Easter eggs and cameos.

There are a lot of big reveals in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and some minor revelations as well. Some might even say they’re small potatoes and big potatoes.

One such nugget of information that could be easily skipped over, though, involves one of the movie’s most casual and downright coolest cameos. As is compulsory with any story diving into plot points of the new wall-crawling cinematic outing, we’re going to drop an official spoiler warning here. Ignore your Spidey senses and despair, or dive right in willingly. The choice is yours.

Oh good. You made it. The cameo we’re referring to is none other than Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, leader of the Thunderbolts* and now New Avengers, who dropped in to give Spidey (Tom Holland) some help with his mysterious body-hopping villain at the start of the movie (during a hilarious spa scene) and nearing its third act.

Jumping on a call to help the webhead out, their conversation gets interrupted by Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya), who are in awe of the superhero-hosted chinwag. It’s here, though, that after getting ushered out of shot by Peter, Ned points out that he’s talking to none other than Black Widow.

It might be a throwaway line, but it’s worth pointing out that up until now, Yelena hasn’t officially been named the Black Widow. The title stuck squarely on her big sister, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), who has long since passed away following the events of Avengers: Endgame and the Red Room program's shutdown. It’s nice, then, that now, after finally finding her place in the world, she’s able to carry on her sister’s legacy, which will very likely flourish during the events of Avengers: Doomsday.

Yelena will be one of many heroes who have taken up mantles previously held by heroes who either died or have given up the superhero schtick altogether. When Victor von Doom does arrive, he’ll be taking on the next generation of Black Panther (Letitia Wright’s Shuri), Captain America (Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson), and now a Black Widow. We’ll have to see how they all get along when Avengers: Doomsday arrives on December 18.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives in the US this July 31. While you wait, check out our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, or see our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

Now with four standalone adventures under his belt, it’s safe to say that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has faced a wild array of villains up to this point. One big bad he has yet to square up against, though, is one that has spent more time in Hell’s Kitchen than wandering into Queens causing trouble.

Vincent D’Onofrio has been very vocal about wanting to see Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin square up against Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, but blamed studio rights for creating the holdup. Well, according to cap-wearing world-builder Kevin Feige, that might not be as big of a problem as we expected.

Speaking to Josh Horowitz about where potential Spider-Man stories, Feige admitted that Kingpin was never out of consideration to take on the hero he first shared a comic book page with. Were rights issues really that much of a problem in holding up a fresh new superhero showdown? “They’re not, they’re not,” Feige assured. “There are things to navigate like everything else. We talked about all those characters at one point.”

Up until now, the only big street-level players that Spidey has crossed paths with are The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and, unknowingly, Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil (Charlie Cox) in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Annoyingly, fans also came close to having Rosario Dawson reprising her role as Claire Temple from Daredevil in the new Spidey movie, before the scene was cut. In the case of Fisk, his presence is briefly felt in the new chapter, as a Mayor Fisk poster appears in the background of one scene in the film, but that's all we've got so far.

The good thing is, whatever the connection, big or small, it’s clear there’s an effort to integrate more of these characters that aren’t fighting planet-devouring threats like Galactus, and instead bump into heroes that are trying to stop corrupt political moves and weapons deals. We’ll just have to keep our web shooters crossed that Fisk and Spidey cross paths somewhere down the line and maybe even Frank and Matt Murdock drop in to lend a hand, fist, or some immensely unnecessary firepower while they’re at it.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now in the UK, and releases on July 31 in the US. For more, check out our Spider-Man: Brand new Day review or dive into our spoiler-filled breakdown of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits scene.

Before Spider-Man: Brand New Day hit the big screen, Tom Holland says there were multiple cuts of the new Marvel movie, including one he really didn't like.

"What's really interesting is, we've seen loads of different cuts of this movie," said the Peter Parker star to Quotable. "One of the cuts was, they took all of the notes from all of the random people that saw the film, and they changed the movie. And then, we watched it, and we hated it."

Holland didn't disclose what was exactly different about the cut, but added, "It totally didn’t work. And it's what the people were asking for, but it wasn't quite what we wanted as the creatives. But they learned lessons from that experience. So, a movie can change in a thousand different ways in the edit room."

Luckily, Sony listened to Holland, as Spider-Man: Brand New Day is already a hit with critics and audiences alike. In our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, we awarded the new Spidey installment four out of five stars. "Holland’s fourth solo outing as Spider-Man is a blast, with personal stakes to match its evolved spectacle," reads our review.

Brand New Day currently stands at a near-perfect 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is on track to debut to one of the MCU's biggest box office openings yet.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day picks up four years after Doctor Strange wiped the world's memory of Spider-Man's true identity, and finds the hero at his lowest point yet. But when a villain that no one can see starts to torment New York City, he must pull himself out of his slump and once again save the day. The movie welcomes back Zendaya as MJ, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds, and adds Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, Jon Bernthal's Punisher, and Sadie Sink in a mystery role.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out in UK cinemas now, and hits theatres in the US on July 31. For more on the movie, check out our guides on the Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits scene and our Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending explained, and keep up with new Marvel movies and TV shows heading your way.

Billy Clements, who plays Ramrod in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, has revealed that he originally had a more fleshed-out role in the new Spider-Man movie.

Clements – who also portrayed 'The Russian' in Deadpool and Wolverine – wrote on Instagram of his experience, "A lot of Ramrod's stuff was cut, but they had to cut out 3 hours and a lot more recognised actors were totally cut out… Really happy to be there if only for a bit."

The actor also added that he studied all of Ramrod's comic book appearances (presumably including The Amazing Spider-Man #221, which is recreated in the movie by director Destin Daniel Cretton) to represent the character as "accurately" as possible.

Ramrod appears during the opening act's montage of Spider-Man's crimefighting antics, including taking down the likes of Boomerang, Tarantula, and Scorpion.

While speculation may run rampant over who didn't make the cut (Keith David, after all, is only part of one background voiceover moment), we're pretty confident that Claire Temple actor Rosario Dawson is one of them.

Temple, the confidant and nurse to so many of the MCU's street-level heroes, could have conceivably appeared during the dramatic events of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending. No spoilers here. But if you know, you know.

Speaking at GalaxyCon, Dawson stated she "shot a scene" for Brand New Day but it "got cut out."

Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits US cinemas on July 31, but is now out in some territories.

For our verdict, read the Spider-Man: Brand New Day review.

Already seen it? Swing on over to our breakdown of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day post-credits scene, plus an explainer on how [SPOILER] reacts in the final scene.

It seems Spider-Man: Brand New Day is catching its audience in a web of intrigue ahead of opening weekend.

Early box office predictions – depending on your source – have the fourth Spider-Man MCU movie's opening gross at anywhere from $465 million to a whopping $800 million.

Either way, it's on the cusp of making Marvel history as Tom Holland's Spidey gets ready to swing into cinemas.

Deadline, using National Research Group data, says Brand New Day is tracking for $195 million in the US, though Variety goes one step further by earmarking over $250 million.

That would put it in esteemed company alongside Avengers: Endgame ($357 million), Spider-Man: No Way Home ($260 million), and Avengers: Infinity War ($257 million).

Twitter account Global Box Office has an $800 million global box office on opening weekend, which may be a little unrealistic – but not impossible.

In short: it's going to be a phenomenon. We're looking at Brand New Day hitting heights not seen in the MCU since the 2021 multiverse mash-up Spider-Man: No Way Home, and it could become the biggest non-Avengers: Endgame Marvel movie ever.

Spider-Man has always been as close to a box office certainty as possible, but throw in the crossover potential with Mark Ruffalo's Hulk and Jon Bernthal's Punisher, plus continued speculation over Sadie Sink's mystery character, and it appears the stars have aligned for Brand New Day to crush any notion of superhero fatigue as we hurtle towards Avengers: Doomsday this December.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now in UK cinemas and opens in the US on July 31.

For more, check out our guide to the Marvel movies and shows to watch before Brand New Day. Then, discover our verdict on the webhead's latest big-screen outing in our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review.

Marvel Studios may have hit a rough patch following the box office conquering high of Avengers: Endgame, but the undeniable bright spot of the shaky Multiverse Saga has been Tom Holland's Spider-Man. After 2021's No Way Home – a post-Endgame victory lap featuring all three big-screen Spideys – Spider-Man: Brand New Day is something of a creative refresh. Divisive director Jon Watts is out, Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton is in after an aborted Avengers movie. And while there's much that feels familiar here, alongside some frustrating wheel-spinning as far as the MCU's big picture is concerned, Brand New Day is a home run, and Marvel Studios' strongest standalone outing since Endgame.

Picking up some four years after the events of No Way Home, which ended with Doctor Strange casting a spell that caused the world to forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man, including love of his life MJ (Zendaya) and geeky BFF Ned (Jacob Batalon), Brand New Day takes Spidey back to web-slinging basics. Pete may be keeping the streets safe by taking down colourful costumed villains, but he's the loneliest boy in New York, longing for a reunion with MJ and Ned, and privately mourning the death of Aunt May.

Enter a mysterious hooded individual (Stranger Things star Sadie Sink), who's committing impossible crimes by jumping from mind to mind, and mysteriously targeting the Department of Damage Control, led by Bill Metzger (Severance's Trammell Tilman). The identity of Sink's mystery character has been the source of rampant speculation, and we won't spoil it here, but she's integral to the story and broadens the scope of the MCU in a major way. Also in the mix are The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), who add to the sense of Avengers-like event here, particularly when all three come together for a scrap that feels ripped straight from a comic-book splash page.

Crimes and Punishment

Cretton made one of the more fondly regarded post-Endgame movies in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and his more grounded filmmaking style (born from a pre-Marvel career in indie cinema) proves a perfect fit for a street-level take on Marvel's wall-crawler. The web-swinging here feels as visceral and immediate as the character drama, with significant time and attention dedicated to Peter's hollow personal life. Arguably, it's the first time a Spidey movie has got this alchemical mix just right since Spider-Man 2, as, like Sam Raimi, Cretton knows Spider-Man is at its best when Peter's great power comes with an even greater responsibility.

Speaking of power, Peter's had a bit of an upgrade in Brand New Day, and mercifully there isn't a nano-bot in sight. Peter's homemade, primary color costume pops off the screen, and might be the best a Spidey-suit has ever looked outside of the comics. His organic evolution is also a key part of the story, allowing Cretton and co. to take Peter back to square one, as he learns to use even more powerful organic web-shooters and heightened senses as if for the first time, increasing the danger as the threat to the city escalates.

And while the reality-ending stakes of No Way Home are brought down to Earth here, Brand New Day doesn't fall short when it comes to spectacle. The aforementioned Hulk/Punisher three-way is a knockout; it's the scariest Hulk has been since his helicarrier rampage in the original Avengers. A dazzling battle with ninja assassins The Hand is like something out of House of Flying Daggers, with graceful wirework and furious fight choreography captured with a corkscrew camera. And what a delight to have a wisecracking, cocksure Spidey in his prime at the center of it all.

Under the hood

It's a more personal, more emotional story than any of the Holland Spideys, one that reckons with the consequences of Peter's decision at the climax of No Way Home in a way that doesn't let him off Scott-free. Zendaya and Holland are particularly strong in a number of key heart-to-hearts. As is Bernthal's Punisher, who's softened only slightly for the family-friendly Spider-Man crowd, his big-brother-little-brother bickering with Peter a constant delight whenever the pair are (reluctantly) brought together.

Some ropey VFX aside, it looks terrific; Cretton has an eye for New York that Watts never did (it's telling that the credits play over gorgeous, verite-style footage from across the city). It never quite troubles Spider-Man 2 as the very best of the superhero genre; it plays things a little too safe for that, with a predictable third-act villain turn, and a certain sense that we're retreading old ground with a character we all know inside out by this stage.

And without getting into specifics, if you're tapped into the rampant speculation around the movie, you may be a little disappointed by the lack of true surprises in Brand New Day. But – Sadie Sink mystery aside – there's a sense that, for the first time in a long time, this is a Spider-Man movie that's been made for the right reasons, with its long-term legacy in mind, not just Friday night audience reactions. Brand New Day is all the better for it.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day releases in theaters on July 29 in the UK and July 31 in the US. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way and our breakdown of how to watch the Marvel movies in order.

Ryan Reynolds shocked fans during San Diego Comic-Con 2026 when he revealed during the Marvel Studios panel that he had been walking around the convention in a grey-and-blue Deadpool costume... and that he wasn't just a cosplayer with an extra-impressive suit.

As it turns out, Reynolds had been taking photos with fans all day ahead of the panel... and no one knew. "The fans got Deadpool off the ground so many years ago," Reynolds wrote on Twitter alongside a video montage of him meeting fans. "Yesterday, 10 years after the first film and exactly 2 years after Deadpool & Wolverine, I felt so lucky to be on the #SDCC floor with everyone whose unapologetic devotion brings so much joy to this world." You can check out the video below.

"No handlers, no security, no ropes. WHAT A GIFT," he continued. "Thanks to everyone I met, who aren’t only cosplaying but world-building. And also… actual Sergeant Slaughter!"

At the panel itself, Reynolds showed up in costume to ask: "Why was Thor crying?" This, of course, is in reference to the weird Deadpool and Wolverine scene in the TVA that shows Thor crying on a screen. Is it from a future Avengers movie? We have no idea. Neither did any of the Avengers on stage at the panel, including Paul Rudd, who replied, "He's a Wrexham fan?"

There was no word as to whether Deadpool would be in Avengers: Doomsday, nor did we get an update on a potential Deadpool 4. Though, maybe Thor was crying because he didn't get a photo with undercover Ryan Reynolds at San Diego Comic-Con.

Deadpool 4 has not yet been officially announced. Avengers: Doomsday releases in theaters on December 18. Look ahead with our list of upcoming Marvel movies and shows.