It’s become tradition for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man to team up with other major players from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in his solo movies. This time around for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, along with Mark Ruffalo reprising Bruce Banner (it hasn’t been confirmed if we’ll see him in Hulk form), Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, will make his film debut in the upcoming Marvel movie after years of killing bad guys in the TV space. We got a brief taste of what to expect between Punisher and Spidey in the first Brand New Day trailer, and Holland has now shared why he thinks these two together might be his “favorite dynamic” yet for his Peter Parker.
Peter and Frank are clearly not vibing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as the latter hits the former with his van and shoots at him because he’s in the way, prompting the web-slinger to kick the gun-toting vigilante out of said van. These two take quite difference approaches to crimefighting, and it’s that very polarization that appeals to Tom Holland, as he said during an interview when he visited the Empire State Building:
But I am so excited for people to see Jon Bernthal as the Punisher in this movie. He's come from a very different world. He's in the R-rated kind of universe and we've basically picked him up and plonked him into our world and he absolutely sings in this movie. He is incredible.
Jon Bernthal was revealed to be in Spider-Man: Brand New Day last June, although details are still sparse about his role aside from crossing paths with Spidey in New York City while waging his war on crime. Until now, Punisher has operated in R-rated, or at least R-adjacent territory, starting with when he was introduced in Daredevil Season 2 a decade ago. However, Tom Holland is pleased with how bringing the character into the PG-13 space for Brand New Day turned out. He continued:
The relationship between Spider-Man and the Punisher is so funny, and it changed a lot and it evolved a lot as we were shooting because Jon and I would improvise and it. It started as this relationship of two people that really kind of hate each other, and then as we started improvising, it became this big brother/little brother rivalry, and it might be my favorite dynamic that I've ever seen with Spider-Man.
Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal previously worked together on 2017’s Pilgrimage, where they helped each other out with their respective MCU auditions. Also, Spider-Man: Brand New Day isn’t even the only movie they’re co-starring in this July. Holland and Bernthal are respectively playing Telemachus and Menelaus in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, so if you’re a fan of both of these actors, that month is going to be a fun one. I’m especially eager to see the full scope of their bickering sibling dynamic in the next Spider-Man movie.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters on July 31, and you can stream both Peter Parker and Frank Castle’s past MCU exploits with your Disney+ subscription. Additionally, Jon Bernthal will star in his own Punisher TV special on the same streaming platform somewhere on the midway point of the 2026 TV schedule.
