Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon Just Teased the Grey Hulk in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and Fans Are Losing Their Minds

The Marvel hype machine has been running at full speed since ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ began its promotional push, but even by those elevated standards, the cast just delivered something fans were not expecting. In a brief but brilliantly cryptic exchange, the three leads of the most anticipated superhero film of the summer playfully confirmed what many have suspected for months.

The clip, shared to the Spider-Man Movie social channels, captures Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon riffing off each other with the kind of easy chemistry that comes from nearly a decade of working together.

Holland opens with a casual declaration that “The Hulk is green,” to which Zendaya immediately shoots back, “Is he though? I don’t know.” Batalon chimes in with “There’s other colors,” before a flustered Holland backtracks, laughing, “I didn’t say that. I’m getting hot.”

It is the kind of non-confirmation confirmation that Marvel has turned into an art form, and the internet wasted no time dissecting every syllable. What makes it land so hard is the context already surrounding Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner in ‘Brand New Day’.

According to insider Daniel Richtman, fans may actually see the Grey Hulk in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ even though the studio is reportedly pushing the green Hulk in promotions to keep the reveal secret. That detail makes Holland’s sudden discomfort in the clip feel less like a gag and a lot more like a slip.

The intrigue around the Hulk in this film runs deeper than a color swap. Merchandise has confirmed that ‘Brand New Day’ will be the first MCU film in history to feature multiple versions of the Hulk, with Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner appearing in both his Smart Hulk form and his classic Savage Hulk incarnation, the latter not seen since 2018’s ‘Avengers: Infinity War’. For fans who have long wanted the MCU to bring back the raw, rage-fueled version of the character, this is exactly the kind of escalation they have been asking for.

The first trailer showed Peter Parker seeking out Dr. Bruce Banner as a mentor figure, with Banner appearing in an unusually grounded, academic setting as a lecturer, which seemed to suggest a quieter role for the character. The cast’s Grey Hulk tease blows that assumption wide open. Sadie Sink’s mysterious character is shown in the second trailer to possess mind-control abilities, and the prevailing theory among fans and insiders is that she is the trigger for whatever transformation the Hulk undergoes.

Sink’s role remains one of the film’s most fiercely guarded secrets, but the speculation has reached a fever pitch. Industry insider Jeff Sneider has stated he believes Sink is playing Jean Grey, and Deadline previously noted the prevailing theory that she could be introduced as the X-Men character, with clues including her red hair, a yellow-and-green costume tease, and the apparent telepathy shown in early footage. If Sink is indeed portraying the iconic mutant, the Grey Hulk theory slots in with near-perfect narrative logic, with a powerful psychic forcing Bruce Banner’s most primal alter ego to the surface against his will.

During Fandango’s Big Ticket interview, Zendaya spoke warmly about the environment director Destin Daniel Cretton has created on set, describing the cast as a family built on years of shared history. That comfort with each other is exactly what made the Grey Hulk tease clip work so well. The three of them clearly know more than they are letting on, and their ease in dancing around a spoiler made it all the more entertaining to watch.

Holland has been deliberately framing ‘Brand New Day’ as something different from its predecessors. In an interview with Esquire, he described the film as a genuine mystery, saying, “This movie is a real mystery and for a large portion of the film, even Spider-Man is a little bit at odds and lost and is like, ‘What is going on?’ We’re just trying to find ways to make this movie feel like a detective movie.” A Hulk whose color you cannot even trust fits that tone perfectly.

With ticket pre-sales now live and the film set to swing into theaters on July 31, the cast’s playful Grey Hulk tease has only deepened the mystery box that Sony and Marvel have been so carefully guarding. If ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ really is ending the Smart Hulk era, then Marvel is almost certainly preparing Bruce Banner for something significant in the MCU’s future, and this summer might be where that shift begins in earnest.

Drop your theories in the comments below: do you think the Grey Hulk will actually appear in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ and is Sadie Sink’s mystery character the key to unlocking it?