Jon Bernthal Will Appear as the Punisher in Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Spider-Man is going to need his Spider-Sense to stay out of Frank Castle’s crosshairs. On Friday, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the long-running rumor – which Gary from Nerdrotic has been saying for quite a while – that Jon Bernthal will return as the Punisher in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the webslinger’s next MCU outing. Bernthal debuted as Marvel’s premier gun-toting vigilante on season 2 of the Netflix series Daredevil before getting two seasons of his own show; he returned this year in the Disney+ atrocity Daredevil: Born Again, and he was easily the best thing about the revival despite his limited screen time. Little is known about the plot of Spider-Man: Brand New Day; aside from Tom Holland’s return as Spider-Man, we know Zendaya and Jacob Batalon will be back as Michelle and Ned, though not in what capacity or for how long (hopefully in a minor appearance and briefly); and we know Sadie Sink and Liza Colón-Zayas will star with Holland, but not in what roles. Otherwise, there are rumors, some stronger than others – like that Mark Ruffalo will appear as the Hulk, something else Gary has been saying for months. Well, he was right about the Punisher, so I think a Hulk appearance just became more likely. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton from a script by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is scheduled to be released on July 31, 2026.
There’s a certain symmetry to the Punisher turning up in a Spider-Man movie because his comic debut was in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #129, where he was portrayed as a villain for Spidey, a cold-blooded vigilante who is tricked into thinking Spider-Man is a criminal deserving of his brand of justice. Including him in Spider-Man: Brand New Day allows for the kind of philosophical discussions about good and evil that made his stint on Daredevil so great, with Peter Parker having a different perspective than Matt Murdock, though largely the same viewpoint. I’m also interested in seeing how this affects Peter’s character arc; in Spider-Man: No Way Home, he was brought back from the brink of murder by the Tobey Maguire version of Spider-Man and warned of the dangers of giving in to hate and anger by Adam Garfield’s Spidey. But now, he’s a broken man who’s lost everyone in his life; will emulating the Punisher be a tantalizing option for him? Is he angry, lonely, and hopeless enough to give in to his baser instincts? Or maybe the story will be something else entirely.
I will say that I’m much more excited for this than anything else Marvel is doing with the Punisher, which may seem weird because I doubt Frank will be able to do a lot of the things we’d like to see him do in a family-friendly Spider-Man film. But I trust the writers of Spider-Man: Brand New Day more than I trust pretty much anyone writing for Marvel right now; they’ve written three great Spider-Man movies that are rooted in character and (though some would disagree with me) show an understanding of who Spider-Man is, even if he took a long route to get there completely. That doesn’t mean they’ll get the Punisher to the same extent, but I’d rather see them try than the people who’ve screwed up every other aspect of the post-Endgame MCU. I also trust Jon Bernthal, now more than ever, because he managed to make it through Born Again unscathed, which is a minor miracle. He just instinctually knows how to play the character, and I think he’ll make sure we know this is Frank Castle, not some PG imitation, even if he’s in a PG-13 movie. Finally, the inclusion of the Punisher suggests that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be the more grounded, street-level Spidey adventure I and many – I think it’s safe to say most – wanted as a follow-up to No Way Home, as opposed to yet another multiverse story. It was touch and go for a while, but it looks like this is going to be what No Way Home’s excellent ending demanded of its follow-up. See? I’m not totally negative; there’s one element of the MCU I still look forward to.
Let us know what you think of the Punisher appearing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day in the comments!
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