Live action and animated projects both made an appearance at CinemaCon this year, as Sony makes its Spider-Man announcements.
Much like ol’ Webhead himself being publicly derided by J Jonah Jameson as a masked menace, Sony’s upcoming Spider-Man series has suffered something of a public relations dent since the last time it saw the inside of a cinema.
The live action series – co-produced with Marvel Studios – enjoyed a hugely successful outing last time out, with 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home earning almost $2bn at the global box office before presumably hoovering up loads more cash in the years since. The series later lost long-time director Jon Watts, however, and the next film has reportedly been the subject of a creative tug-o-war between Sony and Marvel.
Sony’s beloved animated Spider-Verse series endured an even bumpier road to its third film, with reports of a scrapped script and unsustainable crunch for animators suggesting that things haven’t been running smoothly behind the scenes. The film’s delayed release date being one clear symptom of those issues.
However, after a few false starts, things definitely seem to be motoring along with both projects now, with Sony’s presentation at CinemaCon unveiling some key information regarding each film.
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Firstly, Spider-Man 4 is now officially titled Spider-Man: Brand New Day and will arrive in cinemas on July 31st, 2026.Tom Holland will star, Sadie Sink has joined the cast, and Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton will direct. Zendaya is expected to play a much smaller role in the film as she’s busy shooting Dune: Messiah instead.
With most of the series’ core cast sidelined, the new film could well be a soft reboot of sorts. Certainly, the comic book series of the same name relaunched Peter Parked into a new series of stories, effectively doing away with lots of previous continuity, something the film can do given the way that the previous film effectively created a blank new page for the character to move into.
As for Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse, the film now has a new release date: June 4th 2027. According to producer Phil Lord, a ‘whole team was dedicated to learning and adopting new animation techniques to bring the story to life,’ as reported by Dark Horizons. Bob Persichetti and Justin K Thompson are co-directing, and should this new release date stick, we’ll be getting the trilogy-closer some four years after its predecessor.
Given that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will almost certainly pop up in 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars, it’s going to be a pretty packed few years for Spider-Man appearances. We’ll bring you more on these projects as further news develops.
