Kevin Feige has been involved with pretty much every Marvel Spider-Man project since the original trilogy in the early 2000s. He served as an executive producer on those films, as well as The Amazing Spider-Man duology. Feige obviously kick-started the MCU, and so he’s been a producer on all three MCU Spidey films and other appearances. He’s seen the wallcrawler in all different walks of life.
Feige knows the character well, obviously. And now, with an important moment for both the MCU and Spider-Man, it’s vital to get things right. So Feige, according to his own admission, is taking the character back to some of its roots for Brand New Day.
Kevin Feige Promises Return to Form in Spider-Man: Brand New Day
For what it’s worth, I love the MCU Spider-Man trilogy. This idea that they’re good movies but not good Spider-Man movies is absurd. They do some admittedly different things with the character, but the trilogy works extremely well as an origin for the Spidey we all know and love. Plus, No Way Home is the best Spidey movie to date.
With that said, there are some staples of the character that have been missing. Spider-Man is usually alone, and not just because he doesn’t have a team. He’s lonely and left out because of his role as the city’s protector. It costs him. He’s also poor and struggling, which is why it’s nice that Tony Stark isn’t providing him with resources now.
The end of No Way Home and the early marketing of Brand New Day seemed to suggest that this version of the webhead was creeping back towards that. He was in a rundown apartment that he couldn’t afford. He wasn’t going to college, and his friends and girlfriend magically cannot remember him. He’s broke, depressed, and struggling. In other words, he’s right where we all want him.
Kevin Feige has essentially confirmed these suspected changes. “It is the first Spider-Man film that we’ve made in the MCU that is focused on the classic elements of Spider-Man,” Kevin Feige said in an interview with Empire. “He’s doing the Spidey thing of living in a rather sad, small apartment, listening to the police scanner and going out and using his great power responsibly.”
“He is dedicating his entire existence to his job. That’s the core theme that I find incredibly relatable,” director Destin Daniel Cretton added. “I think most people at certain points in our lives have gone through loss. At least for me, and I think for many people, the result can be: ‘Screw it. I’m just going to work. I’m going to do nothing else but work.’ That’s obviously not the most healthy state.”
What works so well about this is that it is a change. In those other movies mentioned, Peter Parker just is lonely, struggling, and broke. He’s never known anything other than that. This time, he will be suffering the consequences not just of those circumstances but of the loss of his other circumstances.
He had access to resources through Tony Stark, who was like a father figure to him. Both he and Aunt May are dead, and he was involved with both losses. One could argue he was somewhat responsible for May’s death. His friends don’t remember him, but he remembers them. It makes the situation that much worse and perhaps that much better for Spider-Man’s future and the future of the MCU.
Conclusion
Spider-Man is usually broke, lonely, and struggling. In the MCU, he had avoided some of that throughout the first two and a half movies. But in the last half of the trilogy capper, Spidey lost everything. He was sent back to the usual state. Now, Kevin Feige is confirming that in those ways and more, the next iteration will be more classic Spidey. We can’t wait.
