Forgotten by Everyone — Your Complete Catch-Up Before Watching ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’

‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘ marks the fourth standalone film in Marvel and Sony’s Spider-Man franchise, bringing Tom Holland back as Peter Parker in what is shaping up to be one of the biggest releases of the year. The first trailer made history as the first movie trailer to cross one billion views, hitting that milestone in just four days, which tells you everything you need to know about how hungry audiences are for this one.

If it has been a while since you revisited ‘No Way Home’, or you are simply trying to work out why Peter appears to be growing organic webbing and teaming up with a skull-emblazoned vigilante, this is your catch-up guide. Here is every key plot thread you need in your back pocket before the lights go down.

What Happened at the End of ‘No Way Home’

‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ ends with a climactic battle at the Statue of Liberty, where Spider-Man teams up with his multiversal counterparts, played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, to take down the Green Goblin, Electro, Sandman, Doctor Octopus, and the Lizard. When a multiversal rift threatens to spiral completely out of control, Peter realizes the only solution is for Doctor Strange to cast a spell erasing everyone’s memory of Peter Parker’s existence.

In a truly selfless move, Peter allows Strange to cast the memory spell, which causes the world to revert back to how it was before, closing the rifts and sending the multiversal threats home.

The spell does not just make the world forget that Peter is Spider-Man. It erases all personal memories of Peter himself, meaning MJ, Ned, Happy Hogan, and everyone he has ever known woke up with no recollection of him whatsoever. Peter approaches MJ after the reset, sees how at peace she seems, and decides not to reintroduce himself, choosing to let her live undisturbed.

The film closes with Peter alone, but we see him wearing a brand-new self-made suit, swinging through New York and embracing the next chapter of his life, setting up exactly where ‘Brand New Day’ begins.

Peter Parker’s Loneliest Chapter in the MCU

According to the official synopsis, ‘Brand New Day’ takes place four years after the events of ‘No Way Home’, with Peter now living entirely alone as an adult, operating in New York as what Marvel describes as a full-time Spider-Man.

Producer Amy Pascal previously explained that the film would deal directly with Peter’s decision to stop trying to balance both lives, because being Peter Parker had simply become too hard.

The trailers pick up from this premise in the bleakest possible way, presenting a Peter who has buried his civilian identity completely and is laser-focused on protecting the city.

The trailers have also teased a significant physical transformation happening to Peter during the events of the film. He appears to develop organic web-shooters, something fans of Tobey Maguire’s original trilogy will recognize immediately, and the footage goes out of its way to hint that something far stranger may be happening beneath the surface.

Why The Punisher Is In ‘Spider-Man Brand New Day’

Jon Bernthal first appeared as Frank Castle in ‘Daredevil’ Season 2, introduced as a murderous vigilante taking down organized crime in New York to seek vengeance for the deaths of his family. He went on to headline his own two-season Punisher series and returned more recently for ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ on Disney+.

In ‘Born Again’, Castle helped Daredevil take down members of Wilson Fisk’s corrupt Anti-Vigilante Task Force, was captured and imprisoned, then broke free, with those events setting the stage for his upcoming solo Disney+ special ‘The Punisher: One Last Kill’.

The most recent ‘Brand New Day’ trailer confirmed that Punisher will play a major role in the film, with the central threat seemingly targeting MJ in order to draw Spider-Man out, and Peter turning to Frank Castle to help keep her safe. In the trailers, Punisher appears clean-shaven and operating in broad daylight, with a truck bearing his iconic skull emblem and new weapons, suggesting a version of Frank Castle who has made a certain peace with who he is.

With this appearance, Punisher becomes the first character from Marvel’s original Netflix franchise to play a major role in an MCU theatrical release, a milestone that has been a long time coming for fans who have followed Bernthal since the ‘Daredevil’ days.

Speaking to Screen Rant, Bernthal explained that what was most important to him, Holland, and director Destin Daniel Cretton was ensuring the character could walk off the ‘Spider-Man’ set and straight onto the set of his solo special, pointing to a deliberate creative effort to keep Frank Castle tonally consistent across both projects.

The shift from the TV-MA intensity of his Netflix run to the PG-13 world of a ‘Spider-Man’ film is a genuine tonal leap, and only the movie itself will reveal whether that balance holds.

The Full Cast and Who to Watch Before Buying Your Ticket

The film is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando as Mac Gargan/Scorpion, and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk. Michael Mando is reprising his ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ role of the Scorpion, a villain who was teased in a post-credits scene nearly a decade ago and has been waiting ever since for his proper MCU moment.

Sadie Sink joined the cast in an undisclosed role, and while Marvel has yet to confirm her character officially, multiple reports have claimed she is playing Jean Grey in what would mark a significant MCU mutant introduction.

Early scooper reports have also suggested her character shares a close relationship with Bernthal’s Punisher and that Frank Castle will protect her from Damage Control at some point during the film.

Footage unveiled at CinemaCon gave audiences a glimpse of Zendaya’s MJ with a new love interest, underscoring just how completely the memory wipe has reshaped her life in the years since ‘No Way Home’. To be fully prepared, rewatching ‘No Way Home’ is essential, and following it up with ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ will give you everything you need to understand where Frank Castle stands emotionally when he and Peter Parker finally share the screen together.

If you have been tracking Frank Castle’s journey since the Netflix era, this is the moment you have been waiting for, and whether Bernthal’s Punisher ultimately feels like the version of the character that belongs in Peter Parker’s world is exactly the kind of debate this film seems designed to start.