‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Star Zendaya Doing the Bully Maguire Dance Is a Must-See for Fans

Promo tours for a new Spider-Man movie tend to bring out the playful side of everyone involved, and this release cycle has been no exception. Between Tom Holland’s endless spoiler-dodging and the cast’s steady stream of talk show appearances, ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ has turned late-night television into its own kind of victory lap.

That spirit was on full display this week when Zendaya stopped by ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’ to promote the film, arriving in New York alongside Holland as the two continued their press tour following their earlier stops for ‘The Odyssey.’ Fallon’s team had already leaned hard into Spider-Man nostalgia around the film’s release, staging a stunt in Times Square built entirely around the internet’s long-running Spider-Man pointing meme in the days leading up to the appearance.

Zendaya brought her own piece of that meme culture to the moment before stepping onto the show, performing the classic Bully Maguire dance while making her entrance backstage. The clip, shared from The Tonight Show’s own footage, shows Zendaya strutting through a doorway in a gold suit, channeling the infamous strut that’s been a fixture of internet humor for years.

For anyone unfamiliar with the reference, the Bully Maguire dance traces back to a single, unforgettable scene in 2007’s ‘Spider-Man 3,’ where Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker, corrupted by the Venom symbiote, transforms from mild-mannered nerd into a cocky, finger-gunning antihero strutting down the street. The moment has since become one of the most enduring memes in superhero movie history, spawning countless remixes and tributes across social media.

The meme’s staying power owes a lot to a 2018 remix video by YouTuber Aldo Jones, which spliced Maguire’s dark Peter Parker into a parody trailer and slapped the on-screen text “BULLY MAGUIRE” over the scene, a video that racked up more than 10 million views and effectively gave the phenomenon its name. Maguire himself has embraced the joke over the years, once telling fans during a Reddit AMA that he still does the dance “every morning” when he wakes up.

Zendaya’s homage arrives at a fitting moment for the franchise, with ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ now in theaters as the fourth installment in Holland’s run as Peter Parker. The film continues the story, picking up after the events of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home,’ and its release has been accompanied by a wave of nostalgia-driven marketing nodding back to the earlier eras of the character, including Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s own tenures in the role.

The gesture also fits neatly into a broader pattern of cast members embracing internet culture during this particular press run, with both Holland and Zendaya frequently leaning into fan-favorite references throughout their media appearances.

Fans online were quick to celebrate the moment, with clips of Zendaya’s dance spreading rapidly across social platforms shortly after the segment aired.

It’s a small but telling detail about just how deeply Spider-Man’s internet-meme legacy has become intertwined with its actual marketing machine at this point. What once started as a fan-made joke about a widely mocked scene has become something the franchise’s own stars are now happy to recreate on national television.

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