In a surprising announcement that felt straight out of the comics, it was confirmed that Jon Bernthal would be reprising his role as Frank Castle aka The Punisher for the MCU movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Of course, fans have been curious how that combination would work out on the big screen, especially given the more mature style of The Punisher. Now Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has confirmed that the Punisher will be “different” in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Feige explained this while speaking in a roundtable interview, and as shared via CBM, this will result in a different tone for the Punisher’s appearance in the new movie. Of course, putting the usually R-rated character into a PG-13 Spider-Man movie on the big screen would definitely have some tone changes.
Here’s what Feige shared:
“When Punisher is in the Spider-Man movie, it’ll be a different tonality.”
In a much more detailed response, Feige continued to explain how the characters will work with one another, further calling Spider-Man: Brand New Day a movie with “street-level crime” rather than the “world-ending events” we’ve seen Peter Parker deal with so far:
“I think there’s a promise at the end of No Way Home, that for as sad as it is that Peter is forgotten by everyone in his life, we are seeing for the first time in the Tom Holland Spider-Man stories him being a proper Spider-Man. Him being by himself, dedicated to saving the city, and dealing with, for lack of better terms, street-level crime, as opposed to world-ending events. So when you do that, you say, okay, who are the other street-level characters that we’ve never seen him interact with? And of course, I love that The Punisher started in a Spider-Man comic. That great cover…I don’t want to say too much, but Destin, I will say too much, Destin is doing an amazing job right now on that movie, which starts shooting very soon. And he’s got eight or nine comic covers up on his wall in his art department that he is bringing to life in this movie, which is super cool.”
Hopefully we’ll have more information on how Spider-Man: Brand New Day will shake things up for the MCU and the franchise’s versions of Spider-Man and Punisher. For now, however, it sounds like a story that fans of the comics will certainly be able to enjoy.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is scheduled to hit theaters on July 31, 2026. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional Marvel Cinematic Universe updates as we have them.