Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s Script Hews Close to Theme and Proves There’s Still Creative Vitality at Marvel

This will contain major spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.    

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the fourth installment of the latest live-action iteration of everyone’s favorite neighborhood webhead on the big screen. After three films with Tobey Maguire and two with Andrew Garfield, a third reboot of the character came less than two decades after the first outing, directed by Sam Raimi, which proved what a film starring the Steve Ditko/Stan Lee creation could be. His Spider-Man 2 is still hailed as a high watermark for superhero storytelling.

Starring Tom Holland in the titular role, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a screenplay by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who have written the previous Holland Spider-Man installments. The film was directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who had previously worked in the Marvel Universe as director of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and episodes of Wonder Man.

Brand New Day picks up after the devastating events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. In that previous installment (which is recapped quite elegantly at the start of this film), Peter Parker was forced to make a terrible choice in order to save not just his world, but all worlds. In order to save everyone he loved and the entire multi-verse, he had to erase the memory of his existence from everyone — including his loved ones. As this film begins, we see him dealing with the fallout of that torturous decision, watching his friends, MJ (Zendaya) and Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) go off to MIT and live Peter’s dreams without him. Peter finds himself living a solitary existence as a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man for years, but that isolation gnaws away at him.

Through his solitude, he finds a new routine. He comes to an accord with the police and has a solid working relationship with a detective at the NYPD (Liza Colón-Zayas) and even plays nice with Damage Control, a shadowy government organization whose mission and ethos seems to be at odds with Spider-Man’s values. They’re focused on eliminating super-threats just like him, but put on a friendly face that Spider-Man seems to believe. When a runaway tank careens through New York City, headed straight for Damage Control, Spider-Man helps defend them against a mysterious new threat that can inhabit people, hopping from person to person at will. This new villain can be anyone and no one in Peter’s life can be trusted. The only person this person’s superpowers can’t seem to jump into is Spider-Man himself, which makes him the only person who can stop this foe from destroying Damage Control.

The villain is revealed to be a teenage version of Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), seeking vengeance against Damage Control for abducting her sister. Spider-Man, having no inkling of Jean’s true motives, stands in her way. She throws a Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) at him, as well as the Frank “The Punisher” Castle (John Bernthal), among others, not to mention using MJ and Ned against him in some of the film’s most emotional scenes.

All the while, Peter is undergoing another transformation of his powers that has a lot to do with the fact that he’s emotionally unstable, burned out, and increasingly isolated.

Eventually, Peter manages to discern real heroes from villains and comes to terms with the changes his body is taking him through. He’s also finally able to come to terms with the fact that the world doesn’t remember him and he’s going to have to earn the respect, trust, and love of all those he’d loved from the shadows in these long years between installments.

This film does a lot of things right for screenwriters of any stripe to learn from, in addition to doing a lot of things right for a film as part of a major franchise sprawling through a universe as large as Marvel’s as well. We’ll talk about a couple of big ones here before diving into what I think this script did the best, which was its handling of theme across its characters, relationships, and conflicts.

Being the fourth film in a series can make it intimidating for new viewers coming on board. There’s always a concern that your audience might be lost, but good writers will approach every new installment of a series as though it could be someone’s first. In an interview I did with comic writer and novelist Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition), he explained to me that all the best comic books—really any narrative that’s part of a series—is going to be someone’s first so you need to write it with that understanding and build the narrative so that it rewards long-time members of the audience, but doesn’t punish new members either. That was the wisdom imparted on him. It’s how I’ve approached my work in BattleTech and other universes, and it’s something to watch out for in these big series films. Have the screenwriters rewarded the longtime audience and not punished the new members of the audience?

McKenna and Sommers handled the job in Brand New Day with aplomb, introducing enough context so that this could have easily been the first installment. Sure, if you know all of the backstory and side-characters, there’s a more rewarding experience to be had, but at no point would a new viewer be lost. There shouldn’t be any reason for them to be.

Think about it in terms of the original Star Wars film, A New Hope, which has been dubbed since its release as “Episode IV.” We don’t get any explanation about how Princess Leia stole the plans or what put Darth Vader on her trail. We don’t know why it might be a distressing thing that the Imperial Senate has been dissolved. Where is Alderaan? Why should Darth Vader respect their diplomatic status? What are the Clone Wars and why do they sound so important? We hear tell of the Emperor, but he remains a figure in the shadows. Terms are given only as much context as is absolutely necessary. Everything else is dropped as though the viewer understands it innately and the narrative moves on. That film became one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of cinema and launched a franchise that will outlive us all.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day maintains that energy. Yes, there have been three other Spider-Man films in this series, but if this had been released first, as the original Star Wars film had, the script makes allowances to contextualize everything we need — even from all of the tertiary Marvel Cinematic Universe material that exists. Some critics have complained that it’s weighed down by cameos and backstory because of the breadth of the MCU, but I truly don’t think they’re appreciating what the film is like from the perspective of a first time viewer and instead treating the rest of the MCU as homework, rather than the additive bonus material it is.

When you’re working on a screenplay, whether it’s the fourth in a series or meant to feel like the fourth in the series in your own original work, you want your characters and entire world to feel like it’s got a life and history that existed prior to the moment cameras began rolling. There’s nothing worse than the feeling that your characters were sitting in blank rooms with closed eyes, waiting for the camera to settle on them before the action begins. It’s always better to imagine they had a life before the film began and will have one when they’re not on the screen, and will have one long after the film has ended.

There are moments in Spider-Man: Brand New Day that are repeated and doubled over, but when they return their meaning has changed significantly and have new, added meaning and dimension for the audience. Sometimes, these things can be simple items and objects that are used—like the infamous compact mirror in The Apartment or the inhibitors in Brand New Day—or ideas in the narrative. In one of the best cases in this film, it’s s series of scenes and dialogue that gets doubled-over. These are difficult things to write and even harder to write well.

The best in Spider-Man: Brand New Day are set in the halls of Peter’s mind. There, he keeps a memory of Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) close to him. Her comforting words give him a drive to make the right choices in his life and make up his moral compass. It’s also a moment he goes back to in order to draw on strength for himself. It’s also the antechamber where Jean Gray is locked out of Peter’s mind.

As we’re introduced to Jean Gray, we learn that she was abandoned by her mother and lost her sister, so she never had anyone close to her, and she lost her mother when it was revealed that she was a mutant. The film makes a point to accentuate her yearning for a mother/daughter relationship.

After this hallway and scene with Aunt May has been an ante-chamber, representing something she can’t have or can’t obtain, and for Peter represents so much love and comfort, it gets turned on its head in the finale. Peter finally invites Jean into his mind and this scene with Aunt May takes on a different tenor and poignancy. Jean sits on the bed where Peter has been sitting every time we’ve visited this scene. May’s comforting dialogue means so much more to Jean in this moment, where she’s longed so much for it. It’s designed so well for Peter in all of his scenes, but absolutely sings with this added dimension for Jean.

Although doubling a scene like this might not be applicable to all narratives, using items, character quirks, and moments to do this is something you should always be on the lookout for. It doesn’t always have to be a whole scene. It could be a single character affectation. For example, in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is a capable and self-sufficient character. This is something exemplified by his ability to light a match with one hand, striking the point with his thumbnail.

Through the narrative, his friend and colleague, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) never seems to have a match when he lights his cigar, and relies on Neff to light a match in this manner and light his cigar for him. At the end of the film, when Neff has been caught for his crimes (he did it for money and a woman, but he didn’t get the money and he didn’t get the woman) and Keyes is the one who has caught him, it’s Keyes who now produces the match and strikes it against his thumbnail, lighting a final cigarette for his erstwhile friend. It works on a symbolic level in a very elegant way and takes on new meaning when its used to turn the tables.

As I left the theater, the thing I was impressed by most was the way Brand New Day handled its themes of choice and agency, both for the characters but also for the conflicts. As you watch the film play out, pay careful attention to how characters respond to their ability to make choices, their inability to make choices, their ability or inability to take choices from others and how that makes them feel, or their feeling that they have no power to make any other choice than the one they’ve made.

Every character grapples with these choices and the agency they have to make choices for themselves and for .

These all hinge around Peter and the choices he’s made—both for himself and for those around him. Peter decided unilaterally not to tell his friends about the spell that wiped him from their memories, despite his promise to do so. For him, this choice is all about keeping MJ and Ned safe. But for MJ, his choice has robbed her of her agency and her choice to decide whether or not she wants to put herself in the danger he’s trying to protect her from. Ultimately, Peter’s character arc hinges on his ability to accept the fact that he can’t make these choices for everyone around him; he needs to let those he cares about decide for themselves if they want to be in his life.

There are thematic elements that reinforce this central dilemma for Peter. Even the choice of antagonist in this film plays on the theme. Jean Grey’s power is directly tied to it: she enters the minds of her victims and robs them of their agency completely. This is doubly reinforced in the scenes where she inhabits MJ, even though Peter doesn’t realize it. Jean-in-MJ’s body makes Peter believe that she’s still in love with him once she remembers who he is and that she misses him. They kiss — taking MJ’s agency from her. This forces Peter to grapple with the fact that he’s kissed MJ again — something he’s been yearning for —  without her consent and it chews him up, adding to his emotional turmoil.

The ultimate villains of the piece reinforce the theme as well, where Damage Control’s job is to take the choice and agency from super-powered individuals — specifically from Jean and her sister, Sarah, who they’ve murdered — in order to “neutralize” and experiment on them.

Peter further grapples with themes of choice, control, and agency when his body rebels against him and begins this new transformation of powers and he tries to inhibit them. He seeks out Dr. Bruce Banner — better known as the Hulk — for advice about the inhibitor he uses to prevent himself from Hulking out. Peter wants to adapt it to his own situation and allow him to operate as Spider-Man as he’s accustomed, without the further mutations his body is undergoing. As they talk, Banner explains the moral implications of what Peter wants to do. If he were to make a universal inhibitor, rather than one tailored to Bruce Banner’s gamma radiation, it could be used against anyone with a superpower, which could be very dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. This also opens Peter up to the dilemma of having to choose which genetic traits are good and which are bad and need suppression. Banner tells him that’s not so easy a thing to decide because sometimes these things need expressing, even if they aren’t convenient. It’s not for us to decide what’s “good” or “bad” in these cases.

As the film builds toward its climax, Peter has to let go of his control and let those around him exercise their own agency. Even if that means terrible things might happen. When he asks the Punished for help, Punisher insists that it will be on his terms and Peter hastily agrees, knowing he needs the help and that, no matter how imperfect, Punisher is trying to do the right thing. Even if that means getting shot by the Punisher himself.

Ultimately, at the film’s close, we’re shown that Peter’s going to finally give his old friend Ned the choice to decide for himself, too. His arc has come full circle, and he doesn’t have to be alone anymore because he doesn’t have to take on the burden of everyone else’s choices. His life is better because everyone around him can decide for themselves.

At every turn, the choices granted or taken from characters play pivotal roles in the narrative, making this a poignant and well-written script when it comes to theme and structure. Every meaningful choice in the screenwriting hinges on it. Rewatch the film and see how it turns every wheel in the story, and you’ll see how well-wrought it is and how much there is to learn from it.

It’s quite impressive.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in wide-theatrical worldwide.

You can learn more about Bryan Young at his website.