Spider-Man: Brand New Day Guide: Where to Watch, Cast and Runtime

Nobody remembers he’s Spider-Man, and that’s the whole movie

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is not streaming anywhere yet — rent or buy it on Apple TV in the US. That is an unusual place to start a Marvel movie writeup, but it fits a film about absence. Doctor Strange’s spell at the end of No Way Home erased the world’s memory of Peter Parker, and Brand New Day opens with him still living inside that: fighting crime as Spider-Man in a city that has no idea who he actually is.

The cast is doing more than cameo math. Jon Bernthal brings Frank Castle to a movie screen for the first time, after two Netflix series and a season of Daredevil: Born Again, and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner turns up as Hulk, pulling the film’s stakes further into the wider MCU than a solo Spider-Man movie usually reaches. Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and Tramell Tillman, fresh off Severance, round out a cast built for a story bigger than one hero clearing his name.

Being forgotten is the engine, not a gimmick: every scene where Peter has to prove himself to someone who should already trust him is the film re-asking its own question. If you want the two threads this one pulls on, our Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man guide covers the animated series operating in the same corner of the universe, and our Daredevil: Born Again guide has Frank Castle’s last outing before this one. The city forgot Peter Parker; by the end of Brand New Day it doesn’t anymore. So which is the better story: the hero nobody recognizes, or the one everybody suddenly does, and what does Frank Castle’s next move in Daredevil: Born Again’s second season say about which Marvel thinks is more interesting?