Tom Holland Reveals He Loathed an Early Spider-Man Cut

There was a version of Spider-Man: Brand New Day that made Tom Holland visibly uncomfortable. He didn’t just dislike it; he felt the film had lost its identity.

The new sequel, arriving this Thursday and marking four years since No Way Home, has critics applauding for its kinetic action and high-octane set pieces. But praise from reviewers wasn’t the full story behind the scenes. Holland recently admitted that he and his co-stars watched several different edits—and one of those cuts left them frustrated.

In the editing room, the filmmakers tried something unusual: they folded nearly every piece of feedback from early viewers into a single assembly. The idea sounded democratic. In practice, it muddied the film’s voice. When the cast screened that version, the reaction was unanimous and blunt. This wasn’t the movie they signed up for.

Why did it go wrong? Because appeasing every suggestion turned the film into a compromise. It matched some audience preferences but no longer matched the creative intent of the director and writers. Holland framed it plainly: a film can be shaped and reshaped in editing until it becomes a stranger to everyone who worked on it.

Back on screen, the story picks up where No Way Home left off. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange erases the world's memory of Peter Parker to protect the Spider-Man identity—friends included. Zendaya’s MJ and Jacob Batalon’s Ned move on with their lives as if Peter never existed. The result is a lonely, relentless grind for Holland’s Peter: crime-fighter by night, forgotten by day.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton, who steered Shang-Chi for the MCU, leans into the emotional fallout. What does it do to a hero when everyone forgets him? It’s not just about empty sidewalks or missed greetings; it’s about the erosion of the small supports that keep a person sane. That pressure nudges Peter toward a change he may not control—and that very change might be the only way to stop a fresh, unseen threat closing in on the city.

The takeaway: a film's identity can be lost in the cut, and the editing room is where a story either finds its pulse or gets flattened.

Brand New Day appears to have emerged from that lesson. The final version aims to balance blockbuster spectacle with the quieter emotional stakes that make Peter Parker tick. Whether it succeeds is something audiences will decide this Thursday—when the lights go down and the dust settles, you’ll see which cut tells the truest story.