In cinemas now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day went through several cuts before release, Tom Holland says – including one he hated. In what is looking like one of cinema’s best financial years since the pre-pandemic era, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is widely predicted to break numerous box office records. But, like any film, large or ... Spider-Man: Brand New Day | Tom Holland recalls the early film cut he “hated”
In cinemas now, Spider-Man: Brand New Day went through several cuts before release, Tom Holland says – including one he hated.
In what is looking like one of cinema’s best financial years since the pre-pandemic era, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is widely predicted to break numerous box office records.
But, like any film, large or small, Marvel’s latest superhero extravaganza had to meet all kinds of creative challenges over the course of its making. And on a major project like this, there were inevitably a lot of notes from studio heads, producers and test audiences over what should and shouldn’t be in the final edit.
Speaking to Quotable (via Deadline), Peter Parker peak parkour performer Tom Holland described Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s lengthy post-production process, which included “loads of different cuts” that he and other core cast-members sat through.
There was one in particular, Holland said, made to address various studio notes, that he “hated.”
“What’s really interesting is, we’ve seen loads of different cuts of this movie, and one of the cuts was, they took all of the notes from all of the random people that saw the film, and they changed the movie,” he said. “And then, we watched it and we hated it.”
It’s an example of the filmmaking-by-committee approach that can often mar big films like this one. Thankfully, that cut was hastily thrown out.
“It totally didn’t work,” Holland added. “And it’s what the people were asking for, but it wasn’t quite what we wanted as the creatives. But they learned lessons from that experience. So, a movie can change in a thousand different ways in the edit room.”
Released in cinemas on the 29th July, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, and has earned glowing reviews so far. There are also predictions that it could make about $260m or more on its opening weekend (which is a long one, admittedly) in the US alone.
As Variety notes, “superhero fatigue is real. Spider-Man fatigue is not.”
