Tom Holland has confirmed that one of Marvel‘s most nightmarish comic transformations almost made it into Spider-Man: Brand New Day. And the reason it got scrapped says a lot about what kind of movie this is shaping up to be.
Man-Spider is one of the darkest corners of Peter Parker‘s history in the comics, a grotesque, feral version of the hero that trades quips and webbing for claws and instinct.
It’s the kind of imagery that horror fans have wanted to see live action for years, and with Brand New Day promising to push Holland’s Spider-Man into stranger territory, speculation had been building that this could finally be the movie to do it.
Tom Holland Confirms Man-Spider Was Considered For Brand New Day
Holland addressed the idea directly, revealing that the concept had made it further into development than fans might expect.
“We explored the nightmare sequences of him waking up as the Man-Spider and very quickly we were like, ‘We do want children to enjoy this movie as well as adults,'” Holland said, via journalist Joshua Horowitz.
That quote lines up with everything Marvel has signaled about Brand New Day so far. The studio has been careful to frame this next chapter as accessible to a broad audience, even while teasing bigger stakes and darker themes than the previous trilogy. A full Man-Spider nightmare sequence, with all its body horror trappings, apparently pushed past that line.
It’s not the first time a Spider-Man production has flirted with Man-Spider only to pull back. The concept has floated around Sony and Marvel circles for years without ever landing on screen, and Holland’s comments suggest that streak isn’t ending with Brand New Day either. Still, the fact that the sequence made it far enough to be filmed or storyboarded before being cut shows just how seriously the idea was taken.
For now, fans will have to keep imagining what a live-action Man-Spider transformation could look like. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is set to bring Holland back for another solo outing, with Marvel keeping most other plot details close to the vest.
Not anymore, though, as Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now out in theaters.