There's no mystery surrounding how popular Spider-Man is. The webslinger made his triumphant return to movie theaters for the first time in five years to star in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and the movie has already made $1.6 billion at the box office in a week. Yeah, he does whatever a Spider can, and in this case, that is absolutely dominate.
The 38th Marvel Cinematic Universe movie features Tom Holland back in the role as Spider-Man himself, and he is joined by a who's who of Marvel stars, including Jon Bernthal's Punisher and Mark Ruffalo's Hulk. There was also an unexpected cameo appearance in there and the return of an ancient organization that we haven't seen since Netflix's Daredevil days.
However, there was one of those Marvel fixtures that had their scenes cut - including a moment which had become a staple of the movie in its own right.
Spider-Man vs. The Hand battle cut for Brand New Day's release
One of the big set pieces of Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes in the form of Spidey's battle with The Hand. The ancient organization of ninjas hadn't made their presence felt since their defeat at the hands of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Colleen Wing, and Claire Temple in The Defenders but it turns out that the Department of Damage Control had trained the remnants of that army to work for them. That put them directly in the crosshairs of Spider-Man himself.
We all knew that Peter Parker would find himself battling The Hand in the movie as those scenes became a staple of the Brand New Day trailers. There were two scenes in particular: The first saw the webslinger battle the ninjas in a prison setting while the other had him leaping into the air to descend upon them - as they rose up towards him with their mystical fighting abilities. While the first made it into the movie, the second did not. It turns out, however, that the battle sequence that was featured in the finished product was actually cut.
Speaking to Comic Book Resources, Spider-Man: Brand New Day stunt co-ordinator Peng Zhang revealed that some of the fight scenes in the movie were either cur or shortened, including Peter's scuffle with The Hand:
"In the end fight, there are a couple of moments which… (one was) my favorite, favorite moment. But maybe the story didn't need it. Maybe one day, they can show everybody. It's not that much longer, but there were a couple of moments that are really, really cool in my mind. But it wasn't in the movie. … You know, people saying that the ninja fight – everybody really likes it, and they wish they saw more. There IS a little more."
Although The Hand don't play a major role in the movie, they become the henchmen that the webslinger is forced to take down in order to get to Jean Grey in the movie's climax. In a bid to prevent him from stopping her killing Damage Control's director Bill Metzger, Jean mind controls the ninjas to take Spider-Man out. It leads to a stunning showdown in the facility, forcing Spidey to make a choice between the life he has been living and the one he wants to live, offering up some of the MCU's all-time best action sequences in the process. To hear that it was originally longer is quite fascinating.
Is Zhang referring to the outdoor battle that never happened? It's possible, though it would raise some questions. The battle with The Hand started and finished in the Damage Control facility. By the time that it is over, Peter is unmasked and bloody, while the outdoor shot features him wearing his Spider-Man mask and full of energy. Was this just a red herring designed for the trailer or is this the cut footage that Zhang is referring to?
Rosario Dawson's MCU return was also among Brand New Day's cuts
Fans were convinced that Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios had intentionally scrubbed characters such as The Hulk, The Punisher, and even Daredevil from that shot in a bid to conceal their presence from the scene - and, in Daredevil's case: From the whole movie - as they had adopted a similar strategy for the wide battle scene in the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer (concealing Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's presences). They didn't expect the whole shot to be absent from the movie. So, we once again ask the question: Was this one of the scenes cut from the movie or was the scene simply a rouse to promote the film and never actually meant to appear in it?
It's hard to know: Marvel movies have a history of making big cuts, so it's entirely plausible that all involved here simply decided to shorten a battle sequence in which Peter and The Hand broke out of the prison and found their way back there, too. After all, we now know that Rosario Dawson's Claire Temple was supposed to make her MCU return in Spider-Man: Brand New Day too as the nurse who helped save Peter's life (and kept his identity secret) but the scenes were ultimately cut.
While Spider-Man: Brand New Day was undoubtedly a fantastic movie, it sounds like there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. Those cuts clearly didn't harm the film - which holds a 90% "Fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes - but they may have enhanced it, building on elements that fans already loved about both the film and the MCU as a whole.
Maybe one day those extended and cut scenes will surface. Perhaps they could even be a part of the Special Features on the home media releases. Here's hoping that is the case - because if there is one thing that we learned about Spider-Man: Brand New Day, it's that everything the movie touches turns to gold. The extended fight scenes with The Hand and the deleted Claire Temple scenes deserve to do the same.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now in movie theaters.
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