Spider-Man: Brand New Day Near-Disaster — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:01] Day almost sucked? Hey, welcome back to Screen Crush. I'm Colton Ogburn and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is arguably the best Marvel movie since Avengers Endgame and certainly the most successful with its estimated worldwide

[00:14] box office to end up around $2.5 billion, which is more than Avengers Infinity War and just shy of what Avengers Endgame brought in. In fact, Brand New Day has already passed Infinity Wars worldwide box office. But

[00:28] we're going to talk about how this movie almost went a very different path and therefore likely would not have been as successful as it is. And also a little later in the video, I want to tell you guys about the classic Spider-Man

[00:41] villain that they almost landed on for this movie before pivoting to Jean Gray. So, Brand New Day, it is breaking record after record and it is holding at a certified fresh 90% critic rating and a 98% verified audience rating on Rotten

[00:56] Tomatoes. And it's a really good sign that Avengers Doomsday is going to do quite well and that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is officially back. But with this being the Multiverse Saga, a saga that has explored the dangers of small,

[01:11] seemingly insignificant decisions creating dark timelines where everything goes wrong. I thought we'd talk about the dark timeline that Brand New Day almost went down during its pre and postp production processes. Things

[01:23] almost went very differently in the early stages of developing this No Way Home sequel. And even after those issues were addressed, they almost butchered this film in the edit. See, following the massive success of Spider-Man No Way

[01:37] Home, there was, of course, the discussion of, well, do we do it again? Do we do another big multiverse movie with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield back alongside Tom Holland? You can see how that would be tempting and at the

[01:50] discussion. This next movie, after all, was still going to be in the multiverse saga, and Doomsday and Secret Wars would now be even closer. So, it would have made sense to go that route. Now, in early 2024, there were some reports from

[02:05] industry insiders suggesting that Sony, who remember holds the movie rights to the Spider-Man character, but partners with Marvel Studios to create these MCU Spider-Man movies. Anyway, the reports suggested that they wanted to bring back

[02:18] Maguire and Garfield once more for another multiverse adventure. And I mean, can you blame them? But Tom Holland, Kevin Feige, and Marvel Studios are said to have been pushing for something else, something more grounded

[02:31] and personal, something that went back to basics. Ultimately, Holland Feige and Marvel Studios won out. And so, Brand New Day was born. And as we now know, this was the first MCU Spider-Man outing where Tom Holland, who played the

[02:44] character in six different movies leading up to this, he finally reached a point where he had some say over the direction to take the character and the story. Holland told Empire magazine that this was the first time during his

[02:57] tenure as the character that he was kind of welcomed into the writer room. Holland and the producers would meet roughly every two weeks to pitch ideas and discuss their ambitions and talk about what they wanted to try with the

[03:09] character. And one of the movies major ideas actually came from Holland himself. He pitched the idea that he jokingly referred to as spider puberty. The basic question that Holland was proposing is what happens if Peter's

[03:21] powers start changing as he gets older. And that makes sense thematically because well, yes, this movie would feature Spider-Man going into adulthood. This was also going to be his first outing as his own man being a man in

[03:35] general really because in the home trilogy that was still about a Spider-Man that was for all intents and purposes a kid. This would be a movie where Peter would have no Stark tech, no Avengers, nothing. Just a broke guy in a

[03:48] cloth suit out on his own for the first time and trying to make a difference. important. >> Hey, are those treats? Can I have some? >> All right. Jeez, >> guys. See, I was having a problem. As

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[05:23] screen to grab the new AG1 Essentials gummies. And thank you to AG1 for sponsoring today's video. Now, back to what I was saying. Now, this concept of spider puberty ultimately evolved into Peter's changing abilities such as

[05:35] organic webs. And this was really a brilliant way, very reminiscent of Remy Spider-Man 2 to show how Peter and Spider-Man are struggling to coexist and how that can affect his powers, but also his humanity. But Holland's influence

[05:49] did not stop there. Following his time working with Christopher Nolan on the Odyssey, Holland came out of that experience having this to say about how the next Spider-Man movie would be made. Holland has discussed in interviews that

[06:01] in one particular scene he and Zenaia realized during filming that the scene just was not working. He spoke to director Destin Daniel about it and the production essentially stopped so that they could figure out a better

[06:13] version. But in the writer room and on set aren't the only places that Tom with Holland during the final days of the press tour for Brand New Day. He >> We've seen loads of different cuts of this movie. One of the cuts, they took

[06:27] people that saw the film and they changed the movie. He revealed that this movie almost went a very different direction in the cutting room. Now, you called Supergirl. A movie that on paper should have been great. But, as I

[06:42] discussed in this video that's up on the channel now, that movie was destroyed in the editing bay following, you guessed it, audience test screenings. And look, I am in no way suggesting that test screenings to help make a movie all the

[06:54] more better are a bad idea. But at the end of the day, you shouldn't change your movie based on what an extraordinarily small sample size of the audience gave you as feedback. if the notes they gave don't feel right to you

[07:07] as the filmmaker. And that is what happened with Brand New Day. The studio did a new cut of the film based on test audience feedback. And as Holland stated, we hated it. And this whole conversation over yes, giving the

[07:20] audience what they want, but also knowing when to say no and give them something maybe they didn't know they wanted. That's really what saved this movie. And let me be clear. I am not saying that another multiverse adventure

[07:32] with Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire along for the ride would have been a bad movie. In fact, with the same team in place that made Brand New Day, I'm sure that they could have made another multiverse movie that was awesome. In

[07:44] would have had zero issue with them doing another multiverse movie for this fourth installment because, well, we are in the multiverse saga. Doomsday and Secret Wars are on the way. I would have had no issue with them doing another

[07:57] multiversal outing with these three Spider-Man that would then help lead into the roles I presume they have in Avengers Doomsday and Secret Wars. And then you can save the whole Brand New Day idea, that style of back to basics

[08:10] for the next Spider-Man movie in the post Secret Wars MCU. And my argument for that was that we've got years to tell grounded back to basic Spider-Man stories, but we only have a short window of time to tell these multiverse stories

[08:23] with Tom, Toby, and Andrew. Because let's face it, what what makes those interesting and compelling is the beyond the fourth wall gimmick, if you will, of getting to have Tobey Maguire, getting to have Andrew Garfield. It doesn't

[08:35] really work, and it's not nearly as good of an idea if you just happen to say, multiverse Spider-Man movie. let's bring in a bunch of other actors to play the Spider-Verse animated movies, but the point I'm trying to make is that the

[08:49] true draw of doing those multiverse movies with Spider-Man is that, hey, we get to see all of these actors that we love as Spider-Man playing Spider-Man again and sharing the screen. And my point was is that you only have so long

[09:01] to do that, so you might as well do it now. And while I've kind of become known as the No Way Home hater, I did not hate the movie. I just have a lot of problems with it. I think had this same time and attention to detail and refusal to cut

[09:14] corners that we saw applied to Brand New Day had been applied to another Multiverse movie, it could have been just as good as Brand New Day wound up being. Brand New Day's story and its connection to classic Spider-Man stories

[09:27] is of course part of what makes it great. But what truly makes the film work is that attention to detail and that refusal to phone it in. The writing, the dialogue, the direction, the cinematography, the color grading,

[09:39] the pacing. It was all dialed in and they made a movie that actually felt like a movie and didn't look like an ad for apartments.com featuring the Grandmaster. And yes, I know No Way Home's production was greatly hindered

[09:51] by the pandemic. And that's my point. No Way Home felt very restricted, claustrophobic, and quite frankly convoluted at times. If you look at that seconds, the whole thing comes crumbling down. But when you have the attention to

[10:05] detail that Brand New Day had and apply that to any movie, you were going to get something great. So Brand New Day, it didn't almost suck because Sony wanted another multiversal extravaganza. It almost sucked because they nearly fell

[10:19] into that same trap of ignoring making a good movie just to instead serve up some phoned in slop that they think the audience wants and will enjoy just as much with half the effort. ignoring things that movie studios think general

[10:32] audiences don't care about anymore such as layered stories, compelling dialogue, And not to beat a dead horse, but a production quality that actually looks like a movie and not some flat made for streaming muddy mess. Beyond Marvel and

[10:47] superhero movies, more and more films were starting to look like we have where the movies were primarily being made to watch. That's where the guys in the suits, who love to cut corners and save money, thought that movies would be

[11:00] experienced in the home on a streaming service. Movies to be written, shot, and background while they scroll their phone at home. But here recently, that has especially with the performance of Brand New Day, that they are willing to get

[11:16] out and go to the movies if they are given something that is actually worthy of their time and hard-earned money. All right, so it's no secret I love Brand New Day and I adored Jean Gay's part in the movie. I think Satie Sync did great,

[11:30] but there is this loud minority of like chronic complainers that say stupid things like, "Oh, this wasn't a Spider-Man movie. It was just to set up the X-Men movie." These guys complain that Brand New Day didn't have a classic

[11:42] Spider-Man villain as the main villain. Okay, whatever. I thought she was great. And I'm actually working on a video for my personal channel where I explain why Gan Gray was actually the perfect Spider-Man villain. So stay tuned for

[11:54] be sure to check out our merch store, screen crushmmerch.com. We've got lots of fun shirts like the new big potato threat, the web shooting 101, the Duggle identity, and many more fun Marvel inspired parody shirts. Shopping our

[12:07] merch store is the best way to support the channel. Thank you so much for your Gan Gray thing and people complaining that the movie didn't have an actual Spider-Man villain because there is a new report detailing that Spider-Man

[12:20] Brand New Day writers Chris McKenna and Eric Summers have confirmed that they originally intended to use the chameleon. Here's the quote. We came up with Metamorphosis and everyone was very excited about that idea. Then we were

[12:33] trying to come up with a villain that is very important. We had mind control but we hadn't settled on what villain that would be. We loved the idea. In the Hard with Avenge. Can we just do a Spider-Man story that was set in ground

[12:46] mysterious bomber, a villain that was basically toying with Spider-Man. Eric that would fit that bill. And we were thinking, God, what's a classic Spider-Man villain that no one has really done yet in the films? Well,

[13:00] They've done scrolls. They're not going to do masks. How do we do that? And then we hit upon the idea of mind control. And what if instead Chameleon was using mind control? But then they had already used Demetri and Craven. So it was like,

[13:15] what got us on the path of mind control. And then that eventually led to us getting the perfect character for that role, Gan Gray. Now, as they just that we actually did just see Chameleon in Sony's Craven the Hunter.

[13:30] >> I've always been a chameleon. He said it. He said it. Now, from other things I've read about the idea of Chameleon being the villain for Brand New Day is that one, of course, it was not going to be the Sony verse version from Craven

[13:42] considering having Chameleon be a female. So, I don't bring up this Chameleon story as part of our argument that Brand New Day almost sucked. I villain for this new trilogy. Still could be, but I'm not really sure they

[13:54] the whole, oh, the villain can pretend to be someone else thing. But maybe you third movie and you can bring him in alongside his brother and MCU Craven and have him hunting down Black Su Spider-Man. Call it Spider-Man one more

[14:09] >> Why did YOU SAY THAT NAME? >> SOLD. Do it. But hey, this all makes a good as Spider-Man: Brand New Day was, I was always confused by the fact that just before filming, they still hadn't really locked down who was going to be

[14:24] playing the villain. And then they had the idea, let's do Gan Gray. Then they had the idea, let's cast Satie Sink. They call her and as the story has been plane like a week later and started filming. That's a little unheard of. And

[14:39] I think they're exaggerating it a little bit, but it does make more sense now to know that they had the general idea of we're going to have this mind hopper mind control villain. We're just not sure who that villain is going to be. So

[14:51] where Spider-Man Brand New Day was an absolute success and just an overall about this story down in the comments below. And if you're new here, be sure notified every time we upload a new video. For Screen Crush, I'm Colton

[15:05] video. For Screen Crush, I'm Colton Agren. [music]