Let’s get one thing out of the way: superhero movies have promised “the best action yet” since roughly the Clinton administration. Marketing departments say this the way your uncle says “this time I’m really doing Dry January.”
So when the internet starts collectively losing its mind over set videos, trailer clips, and a 71-year-old kung fu legend casually strolling onto a film set in Glasgow, it’s worth asking — is this actually different, or are we just Pavlov’s dogs reacting to a bell shaped like a spider logo?
Having gone through everything currently on the record — official statements, trade reports, set footage, trailer breakdowns, and a healthy pile of scooper gossip — the case for Spider-Man: Brand New Day delivering the best-choreographed action a live-action Spider-Man movie has ever seen is genuinely strong. Not “trust me bro” strong. Receipts strong. Let’s swing through them.
1. They Hired the Guy Who Invented Getting Punched Well
Director Destin Daniel Cretton isn’t just some journeyman handed the reins of a $300 million franchise because he was free on a Tuesday. He’s the guy behind Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, a movie whose bus-fight sequence is still passed around film-school group chats like contraband. According to a comprehensive rundown from GoBookMart, Cretton’s background in grounded martial-arts choreography makes him an unusually good fit for a street-level Spider-Man story — which, per Marvel’s own messaging, is exactly what Spider-Man: Brand New Day is going for: Peter Parker stripped of the Avengers safety net, surviving on his own terms.
That’s the entire pitch, condensed: the guy who choreographed a fight on a moving bus using seatbelts as weapons is now in charge of a character whose entire personality is “sticks to things and uses momentum unfairly.” This is less a hiring decision and more a crime against every future Spider-Man villain’s ribcage.
2. Jackie. Chan’s. Stunt. Team.
This is the part where you should sit down. Cretton didn’t just bring his directing sensibilities to Spider-Man: Brand New Day — he brought the actual Jackie Chan Stunt Team with him, the same unit that choreographed Shang-Chi. Per ScreenRant, Jackie Chan himself confirmed to Hong Kong outlet HK01 that his team was “action director” for the film, and that he personally dropped by the London set to watch rehearsals — an appearance that reportedly left Cretton so starstruck he started visibly shaking.
TheWrap reported the same story with the added detail that Chan made sure Cretton knew exactly whose stunt pedigree he was working with. Multiple outlets, including JoBlo and ComicBook.com, independently confirmed the collaboration, noting this marks only the second time the Jackie Chan Stunt Team has worked on a Marvel production. The AOL/Yahoo wire report even ran a photo of Chan and his team posing together on set, grinning like they’d just finished rigging something that’s going to make a stuntman fly through a bus shelter.
Consider what this actually means logistically: a team whose entire professional lineage runs through Police Story, Drunken Master II, and Project A — films where furniture is not a prop, it’s a weapon, an obstacle, and a punchline simultaneously — is now choreographing a character who is canonically supposed to move like a startled squirrel with superpowers. Spider-Man has always had the potential for Jackie Chan-style environmental chaos-comedy fighting. Spider-Man: Brand New Day appears to be the first live-action film that actually cashed that check.
3. The Comparisons People Are Throwing Around Are Unreasonably High
Normally when a scooper says “this fight rivals [beloved thing],” you should apply the same skepticism you’d apply to a Tinder bio. But the specific comparisons circulating about Spider-Man: Brand New Day are notable for being oddly consistent across sources. According to a report from Cosmic Circus scooper Alex Perez, relayed by AOL, the action in Spider-Man: Brand New Day is being compared to the bus and skyscraper sequences from Shang-Chi, the iconic single-corridor brawl from Netflix’s Daredevil, and the three-way chase between Captain America, Black Panther, and Bucky Barnes from Civil War.
That’s not one flavor of action being promised — that’s three completely different genres of “people getting hurt very well” being name-checked in the same breath: acrobatic wire-fu, brutal hallway attrition, and kinetic urban pursuit. If even a third of that pans out, Spider-Man: Brand New Day isn’t aiming to have a great fight scene. It’s aiming to have a tasting menu of great fight scenes.
4. Early Footage Already Has the Internet Feral
This isn’t purely a pre-release hype cycle running on vibes and press releases anymore — actual footage exists, and people have opinions about it. GeekTyrant reported that recently surfaced fight footage had fans on social media remarking on how much faster, smoother, and more dynamic Tom Holland’s Spider-Man looks in combat compared to prior films — with some viewers noting the choreography seems to borrow the fluid, almost video-game-like movement style from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the beloved Insomniac Spider-Man games.
That’s a genuinely funny full-circle moment: for over a decade, “why doesn’t the movie Spider-Man fight like the video-game Spider-Man” has been a standing fan complaint, filed somewhere between “why can’t he web-swing in a straight line” and “why is Uncle Ben always dying.” It appears Spider-Man: Brand New Day may have just quietly resolved a grudge that’s been simmering since 2012.
5. The Cast Assembled Basically Requires Great Action
Look at who’s actually throwing hands in this thing. Reporting from Nerdist confirms the first live-action Spider-Man/Hulk brawl, with Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner in the mix. Jon Bernthal returns as Frank Castle/the Punisher — MovieWeb notes this is Bernthal’s big-screen debut in the role after years of acclaimed Netflix and Disney+ work, meaning the character’s brutal, no-nonsense combat style is colliding with Spider-Man’s crime-fighting-with-quips energy for the first time ever on a movie screen. CBR adds that trailer footage shows a notably more comfortable, mission-embracing Castle, hinting he and Spider-Man may actually fight alongside each other rather than in the usual “hero lectures antihero about murder” dynamic.
Throw in Michael Mando’s Scorpion, Tramell Tillman as (per GoBookMart) part of an expanding rogues gallery that reportedly includes Tombstone, plus ninja assassins from the Hand as flagged by SuperHeroHype, and you’ve got a villain roster stacked less like a single movie and more like a season finale that forgot to spread itself out. Spider-Man: Brand New Day simply does not have the option of coasting on mediocre choreography with a cast list like that — there are too many fighting styles in the building for anyone to phone it in.
6. Comic Book Panels, Brought to Life
Here’s a smaller but genuinely delightful detail: according to Entertainment Now, both Tom Holland and Cretton have stated that several key action shots in Spider-Man: Brand New Day are direct recreations of specific Spider-Man comic book covers. This isn’t just “we made a superhero movie that looks kind of comic-y” — it’s a deliberate, panel-by-panel homage baked into the choreography and cinematography itself. Combine that with reports that Holland, much like Chan, insists on doing the overwhelming majority of his own stunts, and you get a movie where the guy actually swinging through explosions is the same guy who has to sell the emotional close-up two scenes later.
7. Practical Effects, Actual Cities, Actual Bruises
The production wasn’t hiding in a warehouse pretending green screens are personality. Filming for Spider-Man: Brand New Day kicked off in Glasgow, Scotland in August 2025, with the city transformed into a stand-in for New York, according to ComicBook.com, which also reported set footage showing Holland’s stunt double swinging through explosive sequences in-camera. A behind-the-scenes production vignette released by Sony, covered by The Arts Shelf, further showcased the practical production techniques used to build the film’s stunt sequences — the kind of tangible, load-bearing stuntwork that tends to age far better than a decade-old CGI cape.
So, Is It Actually Going To Be the Best?
Nobody — not this article, not the scoopers, not Jackie Chan’s own trembling director — can promise you that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will land as the definitive best action ever put to film in a Spider-Man movie. Marketing cycles lie. Test-screening reactions get cherry-picked. Editing bays have ruined more good stunt work than bad weather ever has.
But strip away the hype and look purely at the ingredients on the table: a director whose specialty is intricate hand-to-hand choreography, the actual Jackie Chan Stunt Team on actual payroll, a villain roster deep enough to field two separate movies, a lead actor who insists on doing his own stunts, comic-accurate shot composition, practical stunt work filmed on real streets, and early footage already making fans compare it favorably to some of the most beloved fight scenes across two different superhero franchises. That’s not vibes. That’s a genuinely stacked deck.
If Spider-Man: Brand New Day doesn’t deliver the best action a live-action Spider-Man movie has ever had, it won’t be for lack of trying — or lack of one very excitable kung fu legend showing up uninvited to make sure everyone did their reps.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into US theaters on July 31, 2026.
Keep coming back to ScreenTrak for the latest in the world of entertainment!
