Spider-Man: Brand New Day has established itself as a critical and commercial success this weekend. However, the movie has also unexpectedly set the stage for Marvel Studios' X-Men reboot following Sadie Sink's MCU debut as Jean Grey.
While the mutant known as Marvel Girl is initially an antagonist, she later realises the error of her ways and saves Peter Parker's life. That comes after he helps her move on from her hatred for the Department of Damage Control, the organisation responsible for her sister's death.
Speculation ran rampant for well over a year about both who Sink was playing and Spider-Man: Brand New Day's lead villain. Spider-Queen, Shathra, and Jackal were all names thrown around at one time or another, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has now confirmed that a "big development change" led to Jean's insertion into the story.
Talking at USC, he explained, "There was one version of the bad guy, then another version of the bad guy. Then a version, essentially, of this bad guy that was revealed to be a very obscure character nobody had ever heard of. It just wasn't satisfying."
"That's when Jean comes up," Feige added, explaining that they wanted to give Spider-Man someone to mentor after the previous movies portrayed him as a mentee of characters like Iron Man and Mysterio. "That is when it really came together. Then our producer, Emily Fawn, sitting around the table said: 'What about Sadie Sink?'"
It was recently reported that Anne Hathaway was eyed to play anti-mutant activist Leper Queen, only for that character to be switched out for Tramell Tillman's Bill Metzger. She may be who Feige is referring to, though Mindworm and Spider-Queen are also likely possibilities.
One villain we know was left on the cutting room floor is Paste-Pot Pete, a.k.a. Trapster. In an interview with OutNow, Spider-Man: Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton revealed, "We played around with a lot of villains who didn't make it into the final cut in the end. We looked at the different [comic book] covers and considered which ones could help us tell our story."
"We wanted to show how Spider-Man cleans up the city, meaning beating up enemies. But on many covers, Spider-Man is currently getting a beating himself - so for the most part, we couldn't use those," he continued. "Many classic Spidey pose covers were also unusable for us. One character we had a lot of fun with and wanted to include in the film was Paste-Pot Pete - but he didn't quite make it in."
It's unclear whether any additional villain cameos were filmed for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, though there have been rumblings that some big-name actors shot scenes that ultimately weren't included.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now playing in theaters.