Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been a huge critical and commercial success, winning approval from fans and critics alike. However, somewhat controversially, the movie doesn't feature a classic Spider-Man villain as its main antagonist.
Instead, for much of Brand New Day, Sadie Sink's Jean Grey is its big bad. That could have easily derailed the entire thing, and it's in no small part down to filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton that introducing a member of the X-Men in this way works so well.
In a new interview with Deadline, the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings helmer was asked about the decision to make Jean such a big part of Peter Parker's story.
"We wanted to get away from having a villain who just felt typical because this was really Peter Parker’s journey. We wanted a villain who reflected what he was going through. Even before Jean Grey came up, the idea was that the reveal would be that she was just a young telepath. At the time, we didn’t fully know who we could use because we hadn’t talked to Kevin yet. We were going through different options, and Jean Grey was clearly a very good one."
"Then we started digging into the different versions of Jean’s backstory in the comics, finding runs that talked about her sister. We were trying to mine something that really helped us create this mirror of Peter Parker. To us, both characters experienced very clear trauma and had loved ones taken from them. The difference is that Jean really had one person as her community, and that person was taken away. Peter, on the other hand, had a community that rallied around him after Aunt May was killed. Aunt May herself embraced him when he first realised he was different and had these powers. She was there for him."
"That became our north star too later on for: How do we build that throughout the movie, and how does it culminate in a scene that’s really just two people sitting on a bed talking?"
"When we started talking about the character of Jean Grey and [Sadie Sink's] name came up, it was just like, 'Oh, hell yeah.' Even [when she was about 14 or so when we made The Glass Castle], she was a very smart, very dedicated actor with so much talent at that age. Coming into this, she was kind of the outsider entering a cast of actors who all know each other and are all very good, and she just killed it. She’s so emotionally present, she’s so professional, and when it’s time to really go there, she goes there. I think her performance is so powerful and really makes this movie something special."
Quizzed on the possibility of returning for Spider-Man 5, Cretton confirmed that he's interested and said, moving forward, "I think Peter Parker deserves to have some hope. He’s been through a sh*t ton. [Laughs] When I see him make that turn and start looking outside of himself, really choosing to reconnect with the people around him, it gives me hope."
"I don’t know where he’s going to go from here," he added, "but I feel like the title, Brand New Day, is what the movie arrives at by the time we cut to black."
Right before Spider-Man: Brand New Day cuts to black, Peter bumps into Ned Leeds and introduces himself. His former best friend clearly has no recollection of the hero, but when muscle memory kicks in, and they perform their signature handshake, Ned's memories of Peter appear to come flooding back.
Fans have vastly different interpretations of that ending, though, and Cretton has now shed some light on what he thinks they should take from it.
"Listen, we’re definitely not trying to torture people with ambiguity. I feel like what’s very clear is the emotion you’re left with when we cut to black," he said. "To me, there’s a very clear feeling of joy — just enough — and then you cut to black. I have seen the theories, and I love the theories. I think they’re so cool, and I don’t want to stop that conversation by putting my opinion in the middle of it."
"Knowing there will be another movie, that conversation will continue in the writer’s room as we figure out — if we figure out — what we’re going to do next," Cretton noted. "That’s what’s so cool about these movies. The fans are so engaged. Everybody on our side is listening to everything."
"Those are conversations we’ve had in the writers’ room as well, and I think it’s fun that everybody is participating not just in analyzing this movie, but potentially in creating whatever happens in the next one," the filmmaker concluded.
It sounds like Spider-Man 5 will offer some definitive answers about whether Ned and MJ remember Peter. However, the movie taking place in a post-Avengers: Secret Wars MCU could allow some wiggle room and likely won't get too bogged down in the mechanics of Doctor Strange's spell.
Either way, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day already sitting at over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, a sequel helmed by Cretton is surely inevitable at this stage.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now playing in theaters.