Much has been said about Sadie Sink's Spider-Man: Brand New Day role, and depending on who you choose to believe, she could be playing Gwen Stacy, Jean Grey, or even the daughter of Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker.
Our latest update comes from Nexus Point News Editor-in-Chief, Demet Koc. The site has become a very reliable source of rumours, with several stories confirmed by the trades in recent months. With that in mind, we're putting a little more stock in this report than others.
It's said that "Annabelle Adams" is being used as a possible codename for Sink's Spider-Man: Brand New Day character, though the question mark seems to suggest that it may be who she's actually playing.
Annabelle debuted in the pages of 2012's Scarlet Spider #1 and was a bartender/singer at the Four Seasons Hotel in Houston, where Kaine Parker, Peter Parker's clone, was living. They soon became an item, but when Kaine transformed into an enormous arachnid monster while battling Shathra, she freaked out, and he left the city shortly after.
The MCU's Annabelle could be an amalgamation of different characters, and Shathra may well be this movie's mysterious female villain. Created by J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita Jr., recent interpretations of the character have made her a Multiversal big bad with ties to the Spider-Verse.
A few different scopers have suggested that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be a street-level adventure with a dash of Multiversal madness thrown in for good measure, so perhaps that's where Annabelle/Shathra come in (if they're one and the same).
It's not outside the realm of possibility for Spidey to encounter threats like The Punisher and The Scorpion, along with a supernatural foe like Shathra. If Marvel Studios has found a clever way to tie all these characters and ideas together, Spider-Man: Brand New Day could be one wild ride.
We'll have to wait and see, but let us know your thoughts on this latest update in the comments section.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day shares a title with a controversial era of storytelling, which, thanks to a deal with Mephisto, saw the wall-crawler get a fresh start when his marriage to Mary Jane Watson ended and his identity became secret again. He faced many new sinister foes during that time and was surrounded by an overhauled supporting cast, including a resurrected Harry Osborn.
Mister Negative, Jackpot, Menace, and Carlie Cooper were some of the standout additions to his world, though they don't currently look set to appear in the movie. Instead, all signs point to Spidey teaming up with (and at some point fighting) The Punisher to take on a Savage Hulk, with The Scorpion thrown in for good measure.
We recently published a feature about how the "Brand New Day" comics could influence the next Spider-Man movie, along with a breakdown of every villain rumoured to appear (there are lots of sinister possibilities).
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings helmer Destin Daniel Cretton directs Spider-Man: Brand New Day from a script by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Tom Holland leads a cast that also includes Jon Bernthal, Mark Ruffalo, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Michael Mando, and Liza Colón-Zayas.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be released in theaters on July 31, 2026.