One of the only genuinely anticipated superhero releases of summer 2026 is Tom Holland’s fourth solo swing as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. While audience fatigue is real across superhero cinema, Tom Holland hasn’t lost hearts and minds since he donned the lycra suit in 2015 for Captain America: Civil War. Over 10 years, going into his fourth solo swing as Peter Parker/Spider-Man with Spider-Man: Brand New Day, his take on the web-slinger has continued to be one of the MCU’s rare sure things—even with a new filmmaker at the helm. While Holland toyed with leaving the franchise, he decided to return in part due to writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton pitching a story that simultaneously compelled the actor, his co-stars, Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige, producer Amy Pascal, and Sony Picture’s Tom Rothman. That’s a pile of people to impress, but Cretton has a proven ability for soothing the blockbuster beasts.
Cretton’s ascendance as a superhero director is representative of the MCU’s recent indie-to-blockbuster pipeline. After the success of Short Term 12, his adaptation of The Glass Castle, and the Civil Rights drama Just Mercy, Marvel scooped him up to direct Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings and he’s stayed at the studio for the last seven years. Cretton made Shang-Chi the critical darling of Phase Four (matched only by that Phase’s Spider-Man film), and led him to develop the Emmy-nominated (and recently renewed) spin-off series Wonder Man. Now, he’s guiding Marvel’s crown-jewel character into new territory, as an adult Peter Parker marinates in the loneliness he embraced to save those he loves in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The A.V. Club spoke to Cretton about the path that led him to Spider-Man and how he’s found success in a notoriously fickle Hollywood genre.
The A.V. Club: Early in your career, you worked with Ryan Coogler, Brie Larson, and Michael B. Jordan, who all ended up at Marvel. Did hearing the experiences of your peers ignite your own interest in working at the studio?
Destin Daniel Cretton: I honestly don’t really think too far ahead into the future at any point in my career. [Laughs] I was not out to work for Marvel, or really to do any kind of big-budget studio movie after Just Mercy. It’s not to say that I never wanted to, but I didn’t feel like I was at that point in my career yet. I’ve always been wary of jumping into something too big, too quickly. But when the announcement of Shang-Chi came out, I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to meet with Marvel and see what they were going to do with that. But I didn’t go in, initially, with the intention of getting the job. I was just curious.
Once I was on the inside and I met [producer] Jonathan Schwartz, it was a lot of fun. It was fun brainstorming with him in the room. One meeting turned into three, I think. Then, he asked me to come in and pitch. And I pitched something extremely personal, again, not really thinking I was going to get the gig. I just thought this was an interesting exercise. And to my surprise, that very personal story was what Kevin [Feige] and Louis [D’Esposito] and Victoria [Alonso], at the time, really connected with. And that has been my experience there. Every movie, or show, that I have made with them, I’m constantly looking for something about it that feels intimate or personal to me. They’ve, at least in my experience, always championed that.
AVC: It’s no small thing for a filmmaker to get the decision-makers at a big studio to trust you when you want to make something different. Have you asked yourself, “What’s the magic that I bring to this?”
DDC: I don’t have any magic. Maybe the magic is to not have any strategy at all. [Laughs] But I do practice, out of self-preservation, a little bit of managing my own anxieties, managing my own tendency to be a people-pleaser, or to try to give people what I think they want. That is always a temptation. When it comes time to pitch what I see for a movie, that temptation gets very strong. It’s very easy to try to pitch what you think the person, or the studio, would like to hear, as you want to get the job. I’ve always had to talk myself off of that before I go in to do a pitch. I know if I do that, I’m going to do a shitty movie. I’m going to make a movie that at some point I will lose interest in. And I’m working on these things for two years so I have to, out of self-preservation, find something in it when I go in and talk about it, that feels very close to me. Oftentimes, it doesn’t feel like the obvious pitch that a studio would say, “Yeah, let’s do that!”
But I have to tell myself that I don’t care. That’s not the point of the experience. It’s to go in and show a piece of myself and be honest about, if I were the one to do this movie, this is what I would do. I feel extremely lucky that I work for people who respond to that. That’s not going to be the case at every studio. But in my experience, they have not only responded to it, but over the course of making the movies, reminded me of that initial idea.
AVC: What were those personal pitches?
DDC: For Shang-Chi, it was very simple. I started with a picture of me and my dad. My dad was holding me up in the air when I was very young. My dad was likely undiagnosed bipolar of some sorts. There was a lot of love between us, but it was very complicated. My dad really loved me and my siblings, but didn’t quite know how to do that. And that was the core of the pitch for the relationship between Shang-Chi and his sister and their father.
With Spider-Man, it was me thinking about a time in my life when I had a great loss. I felt like the world was over, and I felt like I was the only person in the world. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be loved. I didn’t feel like I had any hope for the future. I didn’t feel like I wanted to lean on any relationships, or that anyone would understand what I was going through. My response to that was, “I’m just going to work. That’s all. I’m just going to pour myself into my work and do nothing else.” That is where we find Peter Parker at the beginning of this movie. It’s an exploration of the repercussions of isolation, of pulling away from your community—what happens psychologically to you when you don’t have your friends or family, people who know you, to ground you and keep your feet on the ground. Being able to walk with Peter through the journey of learning how to reconnect with the people he loves over the course of this movie was, to me, the nugget that I really connected with. That was the thing we talked about with everybody involved, with Tom and Zendaya, with Kevin, with Amy, and with Tom Rothman. Thank goodness everybody was excited about that idea and that’s the movie that we ended up making.
AVC: In the last decade, you’ve stayed a producer in the indie space with Same Old and Lucky Lu. In 2023 when Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which you were set to direct, fell apart, that was a clear potential departure point from Marvel Studios. Were you ready to go, or did they ask you to stay?
DDC: There was a moment there where I wasn’t sure what my next movie was going to be. I was developing the adaptation of Naruto at the time. I had some time to sit and write, and also work on other things that we’re developing with my company. I was also able to be a dad, and be home with my kids, and be a husband. It was a very lovely time. Then Kevin came back to me, and asked me if I’d be interested in Spidey. I didn’t know what they had in mind at the time, so that’s when I went and met with everybody and had those discussions.
AVC: A lot of people were jockeying to direct Spider-Man after Jon Watts. Were you initially part of that pool, or did that seem like a lot to wade into?
DDC: Of course, it is a lot. But, I don’t know…there really is nothing like the fans of this particular character. I love Spider-Man fans. There’s Marvel fans and then there’s Spider-Man fans, right? [He has] a childlike optimism. There’s a reason why fans, myself included, gravitate towards this particular character. His superpower is one of the first things that we learn to do as a kid, to swing. There’s so much about him that reminds me of the feelings that I had when I was a kid. The feelings of being clumsy and making lots of mistakes, but still getting up and trying to be the best version of myself. Trying to be good. That optimism is a wonderful thing to be a part of. Yes, there’s a lot of pressure with any movie. But the excitement of jumping into the world with this particular character and making something that I’m excited to show the fans, there’s really nothing like it.
AVC: You’ve retained many of the same collaborators from film to film, including your DP Brett Pawlak, editors Nat Sanders, Gina Sansom, and Harry Yoon, and even the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. What do they afford you with a film of this size?
DDC: Movie-making is a team sport. Individual talent is important, obviously. But it’s being able to work with people that you know understand that every individual decision also has repercussions for every other department, and working in tandem and having clear, open communication between what Brett is doing and what Charlie Wood is doing in production design, and how that affects what Jerome Chen is doing in VFX. The best way to create a team is to have that team be together over multiple projects. I feel very lucky that the people that I started out with happen to also be extremely talented at what they do and really good people that I love spending time with. When you make a movie like this, it’s supposed to be fun, you know? You want the audience to go to the theater and feel that the people who made this had a good time making it and made it with a lot of joy and love.
AVC: Tom Holland came back to the role in part because of you, and the film was pushed six months because of The Odyssey. He’s talked about how much you improved this script and were willing to hear what he needed. How did you build that rapport?
DDC: Having extra time on any project is a blessing. I’m never going to complain about that. My rapport with Tom, it came very easy. He is the most real person. As charming as he is when he’s in front of a camera, he is that genuine and that fun and that grounded when there’s no cameras around. He has not lost an ounce of passion for making movies, in general, or for playing this character. He embodies the heart of Peter Parker, the joy of Peter Parker. When he shows up on set, it’s like the whole set wakes up. Not only because he walks around and shakes hands, and knows everybody’s names, but he’s ready to play. It energizes the entire crew.
AVC: Hopefully, every project pushes your abilities in new directions. What are you most proud of in Brand New Day?
DDC: We wanted to create an experience for people through the new ways of capturing the swinging of this iconic character. We wanted to find the right place to put the camera, the right lenses to give you that feeling of vertigo, to allow the audience to feel their stomach drop when Spidey falls off the top of a 150-story building. We wanted that to carry through the whole movie.
[Then there’s] the feeling of a world that is as gritty and real, and textured and detailed as New York City. That’s where we started our journey, walking the streets of New York together as a team. It’s wonderful to end here. Looking out this window, I’m seeing the skyline that I’ve been staring at for the last two years on screen. The diverse, cultural aspect of this city is the backbone of our movie and the heart of Peter Parker. We felt like if we could capture the essence of that and put it on screen, then it’ll reflect through the movie in many ways. And I feel so proud of our team for really pulling that off.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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