When Stranger Things star Sadie Sink was cast in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Jeff Sneider was first to report that she would play Jean Grey. Initially, that was easy to dismiss as nonsense because why would Marvel Girl make her MCU debut in a Spider-Man movie?
Since then, speculation about who Sink is playing has dominated the conversation. Just as it was starting to look like she might be Shathra, there were rumblings among social media's usual suspects that the villain's name being put out there was a misdirect to throw any leakers off the scent.
There are a lot of phoney "scoopers" on X, but @Cryptic4KQual has proven far more reliable than most. While he'd previously suggested that Sink's character would be Multiversal in nature, the runtime and trailer leaker has taken to social media to say he was wrong about that and appeared to confirm Sneider was correct, at least in terms of her mutant status.
This comes after reports that the Department of Damage Control will be hunting Sink's character in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and that, post-Avengers: Secret Wars, they'll keep mutants in check (likely using the Stark Industries resources they've seized to create Sentinels).
Several scoopers—with varying track records—are going a step further than @Cryptic4KQual and outright reporting that Sink is the MCU's Jean. While nothing is confirmed, if correct, this raises a lot of big questions.
Sink is already confirmed for Avengers: Secret Wars, and taking that into account, Jean certainly makes more sense than Shathra or Rachel Cole-Alvez. It feels a little random, but with mutants slowly showing up on the Sacred Timeline (Ms. Marvel and Namor, for starters), we may meet Earth-616's Jean as her powers start to develop, and by the time the X-Men reboot rolls around, she'll be part of the team as the future Phoenix.
There are surely worse ways to introduce one of X-Men's leads than in Spider-Man and Avengers movies, even if it does feel like a rather strange way to eventually put her front and centre in Jake Schreier's upcoming reboot.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings helmer Destin Daniel Cretton directs Spider-Man: Brand New Day from a script by returning Spider-Man franchise writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers.
Tom Holland plays Spider-Man in a cast that also includes Jon Bernthal (The Punisher), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk), Zendaya (MJ), Sadie Sink, Michael Mando (The Scorpion), Tramell Tillman, Marvin Jones III (Tombstone), Jacob Batalon (Ned Leeds), and Liza Colón-Zayas. Avengers: Doomsday star Florence Pugh is expected to reprise her Thunderbolts* role as Yelena Belova.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be released in theaters on July 31, 2026.