Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Marvel
As with all high-profile comic book movies these days, leaks and insider scoops are everywhere, some valid, some not. But today, we have probably the weirdest reveal I’ve seen since Spider-Man: Brand New Day rumors started, and I do mean reveal.
From well-known insider DanielRPK (who first revealed Punisher and Hulk were in Brand New Day), he reports that in the movie there’s a scene where Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova see each other naked. That is uh, something.
However, this may not be entirely accurate. A separate insider, James Mack, says that it’s just Yelena seeing Peter naked. That would be more in line with what we’ve already seen in trailers, where there’s at least one scene where Peter wakes up shirtless, buried in webbing, and I do wonder if that scene was digitally altered to…add clothes. But with this weird transformation he’s undergoing, that may be the moment referenced here. That would probably come off a bit less…strange, played more for laughs, and I’d buy that being the case more than both of them.
While not as urgent as the desire to find out the villain Sadie Sink is playing in the film (everyone’s best guess right now is a rogue Jean Grey), we also have seen absolutely nothing about Yelena Belova’s role in Spider-Man. That’s at least a bit unusual as previous reports about Spider-Man fighting Hulk and teaming up with Punisher have been proven true as seen in the official trailers. Yelena, however, is nowhere to be found.
The assumption here is that with so many characters in the movie already, Yelena may show up as little more than a cameo ahead of her larger role in this winter’s Avengers: Doomsday, where she and her Thunderbolts team play a central role. Yelena is turning into a pretty prolific MCU character, introduced in Black Widow, having a memorable cameo in Hawkeye, leading her Thunderbolts movie, this cameo in Spider-Man and the big role in Doomsday. Plus, Florence Pugh even voiced Yelena in Marvel Zombies.
Pugh is one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood these days, but her time in the MCU, however great Yelena is as a character, has been a bit unlucky. Black Widow didn’t perform great, released in the movie-killing COVID era. Thunderbolts very much underperformed compared to the larger MCU slate. But hopefully things turn around for her from here. Entering the next era, however, it’s unclear if her character will persist after this next Avengers movie.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.