On the heels of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ warm reception, filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton and Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige went back and forth for a while about what superhero movie he would make next. At one point, his follow-up was going to be the still-in-development Shang-Chi 2. At another point, it was intended to be an earlier iteration of what is now Avengers: Doomsday. 

In between it all, Cretton co-created and directed two episodes of the MCU’s Wonder Man series for Disney+. The critical darling chronicles a loner actor named Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) whose secret superpowers threaten to derail the biggest role of his career. The show would ultimately land Abdul-Mateen II an Emmy nom, but while it was still in post-production, Feige approached Cretton about telling the story of another lonely guy: Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland). 

“After talking to Kevin Feige a little bit about it, I met with [Spider-Man producer] Amy Pascal. They were looking for a [more grounded] story that was going to explore some of the deeper issues that Peter might be going through during this time of isolation,” Cretton tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s July 31 theatrical release. “I really gravitated toward exploring a character who is, by every sense of the word, completely alone. The character hasn’t really experienced this before in his life. I’ve been through those stages. And I think it’s a subject that a lot of people will relate to right now.”

Peter’s loneliness stems from Jon Watts’ trilogy capper, Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). His secret identity had already been exposed by Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and during Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) effort to erase the memories of anyone who knows that Spider-Man is Peter Parker’s alter ego, Peter corrupts the spell mid-casting by asking to exclude those closest to him, including his girlfriend and best friend, MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon). Consequently, the multiverse is opened up to all of Spider-Man’s enemies who know his real name, as well as the two other live-action Spideys, played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. 

In the end, the three Peters and Strange cannot fend off the arrival of more multiversal threats who know Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Thus, Peter makes the ultimate sacrifice by asking Strange to cast a new spell that erases everyone’s memory of Peter Parker including MJ and Ned.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day, now the ninth live-action Spidey film, picks up four years later, as Peter is focused solely on Spider-Man duty at the expense of his personal life. He still routinely keeps tabs on MJ and Ned’s social media accounts, especially now that the two MIT grads have moved back to New York City to share an apartment and begin their professional lives. Shortly thereafter, Peter can’t help but interact with MJ and Ned as a stranger to them.

“There were definitely moments where Tom, after we yelled cut, was legitimately feeling left out by his two best friends not paying much attention to him,” Cretton shares. “Some of the best scenes in this movie are when you see the three of them together. They have such a magical chemistry that you can’t really fake on screen. It’s a gift that was given to me by Jon Watts.”

Spider-Man: No Way Home went out of its way to keep the returns of Maguire and Garfield a secret ahead of its release. But despite the best of intentions to genuinely surprise audiences, the endeavor didn’t quite go as planned due to various forms of online leaks. As a result, the iconic team-up of all three live-action Peter Parkers became the worst-kept secret in Hollywood. But if a 12-year-old Spider-Man fan in Dubuque, Iowa, got to watch the film without any foreknowledge, then the gambit was more than worth it. 

Surprisingly, the aggravation that the Spider-Man team endured five years ago hasn’t stopped them from applying a similar playbook to Sadie Sink’s top-secret role in Brand New Day. The Stranger Things star is not being completely concealed like Maguire and Garfield were as cast members, but her character’s identity has been kept well under wraps. Cretton asserts that it’s not about trying to follow in the footsteps of No Way Home.

“I don’t think there’s any way of trying to emulate the last movie. In terms of stakes, you can’t really go bigger than that last movie,” Cretton says. “So rather than trying to go bigger, we were hoping to go deeper in a different way.”

Instead, Cretton is of the mind that the moviegoing experience will be richer by not knowing the details of Sink’s role.

“Keeping what Sadie’s doing under wraps, you’ll honestly understand when you see the movie. The movie is a better movie if you don’t know certain things,” Cretton says. “I wish people didn’t know anything when they go in to watch this movie, but we’re not doing it for any other reason but to protect the experience of the fans. And whoever goes on opening weekend, you are going to have a much cooler experience if you go in not knowing certain things.”

Below, during a conversation with THR, Cretton also discusses how Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle/The Punisher was achieved in a PG-13 context, before explaining why a particular Spider-Man shot required at least 65 takes. 

***

During our interview for Shang-Chi, something interrupted you mid-thought. Something swung down into your field of vision, and it turned out to be a spider. 

That’s cool!

You located its web and carefully moved it out of your eyeline. I then joked that it must be an omen, and I’m now choosing to believe it was a sign that Spider-Man was destined to be your next movie. Considering you’d also been flirting with Shang-Chi 2 and Avengers 5 at different points, when did it first hit you that you were meant to do Brand New Day? 

It was when I had my first meeting. After talking to Kevin Feige a little bit about it, I went in and met with [producer] Amy Pascal. I heard about the direction that they wanted to take the franchise and what they were after for this next movie. They were looking for a story that was going to be a bit more grounded and explore some of the deeper issues that Peter might be going through during this time of isolation. So I really gravitated toward exploring a character who is, by every sense of the word, completely alone. 

The character hasn’t really experienced this before in his life. He’s always had somebody to lean on and a wonderful community around him. So to be able to explore that emotion is something that I know I relate to. I’ve really been there. I’ve been through those stages in life. And I think it’s a subject that a lot of people will relate to right now.

Yeah, No Way Home left the character in this place of isolation and anonymity. Anyone who knew Peter Parker no longer remembers Peter Parker. I assume that dangling thread was the crux of every draft, so did the pieces around it change quite a bit?

Oh yeah. The way that these movies are made, it’s just an ever-changing puzzle that begins in the writers’ room. Tom came in with ideas, and then each of our department heads started creating. Charlie Wood, our production designer, started showing me new drawings of some of the sets or places that we could go, and everything sparked new ideas. So the script was just a constantly changing beast. 

The most difficult thing for me to get used to when I started doing these bigger movies was how much evolution happens throughout the process. But it has now become the part that I find the most exhilarating, and I really love getting new input. It’s always my decision to know what is actually making the movie better and what is something to say no to.

It’s rare to have your lead actor in the writers’ room. Did Tom contribute a great deal of material?

Tom, surprisingly, has a writer’s brain. It’s not just because he’s played this character for three movies; he understands story. He comes in with big ideas, but he also really understands the process of writing. He knows what could actually fit into the movie and enhance it. He knows that it’s our job to throw out any idea we have, and while no idea is bad, it’s also our job to know when an idea doesn’t quite fit the movie. So he was very good at being a part of the team.

MJ and Ned interact with Peter in a whole new way. He’s just some random guy to them now. Did Zendaya and Jacob Batalon seem to enjoy treating Tom as a stranger during action and cut? 

There were definitely moments where Tom, after we yelled cut, was legitimately feeling left out by his two best friends not paying much attention to him. Some of the best scenes in this movie are when you see the three of them together. They have such a magical chemistry that you can’t really fake on screen. It’s a gift that was given to me by Jon Watts. So having the rich history of these characters and these actors, all of that just bubbles to the surface when you put them together on screen.

Sony and Marvel have a co-parenting arrangement with Spider-Man, so how different was your day to day compared to Shang-Chi?

It was different in the sense that I’m not only talking to Kevin, but thank goodness that Kevin, Amy and [Sony Pictures CEO] Tom Rothman all really respect each other for good reason. They’re all extremely successful in their own right, and they’re all very thoughtful, very supportive and extremely smart. More than anything, all three are very, very passionate about Spider-Man. They not only want the movie to be a success, but they also want the movie to be a great movie. So it could have been a recipe for disaster if these three powerhouses didn’t get along, but it was actually a very good experience.

No Way Home surprised the audience by teaming up all of the live-action Spider-Men, and that’s got to be a tough act to follow. Is that partially why you’ve kept Sadie Sink’s character under wraps? Did you want to give people a similar element of surprise?

I don’t think there’s any way of trying to emulate the last movie. In terms of stakes, you can’t really go bigger than that last movie. So rather than trying to go bigger, we were hoping to go deeper in a different way. 

Keeping what Sadie’s doing under wraps, you’ll honestly understand when you see the movie. The movie is a better movie if you don’t know certain things. I wish people didn’t know anything when they go in to watch this movie, but we’re not doing it for any other reason but to protect the experience of the fans. I want everybody to have the best experience when they go watch this movie. And whoever goes on opening weekend, you are going to have a much cooler experience if you go in not knowing certain things.

Historically, Jon Bernthal has been very hardcore about his portrayal of Frank Castle, so much so that he once walked away from Daredevil: Born Again. How did get him to turn the dial from an 11 to an 8 or 9? 

(Laughs.) You’ll see. It’s hard to say that he has turned the dial one way or the other. His character hasn’t changed, except that he’s not saying certain words, and we’re not showing things that a PG-13 movie can’t show. But he’s in this movie for a very specific reason. In a lot of ways, Frank represents the path that Peter could take. They’re two characters who’ve had major trauma happen in their lives, and they’re both living in solitude at this point in their lives. So the path that Frank Castle took is a path that Peter Parker could very easily take at this point in his life. Thematically, it just works very well for Peter’s journey. But having them both on screen is super fun. They have so much chemistry, and their banter is amazing.

Tom has talked a lot about The Odyssey pushing back your start date by six months. Did that delay turn out to be the best-case scenario for this movie?

Anytime you have more time to develop a movie, it’s a blessing in disguise. I just try to take everything as a blessing no matter what happens. There are certain things out of my control. And looking back, I couldn’t be happier. Having these two movies coming out so close together, it’s going to be an even more special experience.

Have Tom and Zendaya been able to screen The Odyssey for you yet?

I have not seen it yet [as of 7/16]. I can’t wait.

You guys have got to host a double feature. 

I know!

If you had to stick to the original timeline, is there something serendipitous — be it a location, a casting or a happy accident  — you likely would’ve missed out on?

I have no idea. In general, that’s a dangerous wormhole to go down in analyzing life.

That trailer shot of Spider-Man flying into the Hand, you David Fincher’d that shot from what Tom has said. It required at least 65 takes. What was going on that day?

(Laughs.) Some of those shots were hard. We were shooting at 420 frames per second, and we were trying to match certain [Spider-Man comic book] covers and frames. So we wanted to get it right, and we wanted to get it right for the fans. I wouldn’t say I David Fincher’d it; I was just trying to get the right shot. 

Five years ago, we talked a lot about the loss of Shang-Chi stunt coordinator Brad Allan, and I was happy to see that you brought his partner back for Brand New Day. 

Yeah, [Brand New Day supervising stunt coordinator] Peng Zhang worked very closely with Brad Allan for many years, and it was really important for this movie to have more street-level action design. We were trying to give audiences something fresh. So Peng and his team worked very closely with our amazing stunt team in England to create some really spectacular things that I don’t think we’ve seen Spider-Man do before on the big screen.

There’s been a lot of debate over the years about how to best capture Spider-Man’s web-swinging, be it practically, digitally or a hybrid of the two. What did you ultimately discover?

Our goal on this movie was to do as much practically as possible. It’s impossible to debate whether VFX is better than practical swinging. It really depends on a case by case and what we want Spidey to do. There are obviously certain things that Spider-Man can do but a stunt performer cannot do. So our stunt department pushed the limits as far as they could with our stunt performers, and then we took that [footage] to our incredible VFX supervisor [Jerome Chen] and his amazing team. That marriage between both departments has created some really unique visuals that are going to impress people. 

Season two of Wonder Man was green-lit back in March. Are you going to find a way to make yourself available to direct? 

There is nothing that I would want more than to direct more Wonder Man. There’s no place that makes me happier than to be on set with Sir Ben [Kingsley], Yahya and [co-creator] Andrew [Guest]. It’s so fun.

***
Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens July 31 in movie theaters nationwide.

The deeper DC universe continues to be mined with this fall’s Clayface which is making a big, though secret (shhhh) splash here at San Diego Comic-Con this morning in DC’s Jim Lee and Friends panel taking place at 11:30am at Room 6DE in the Convention Center.

The jumping off point here for another R-rated take on a DC villain post 2019’s Oscar winning The Joker arrived in Doctor Sleep Mike Flanagan’s screenplay which was an ode to the Matt Hagen version of the Batman bad guy in The Batman Animated Series two-part episodes “Feat of Clay”. The origin follows Hagen, a struggling actor, who is injected with a chemical Renuyu to reform his face. The drug was created by evil businessman Roland Daggett who manipulates Hagen to take over Wayne Enterprises.

DC co-Boss Peter Safran calls Mike Flanagan’s screenplay “amazing, a great analysis of superficiality and celebrity culture, the story of how one bad decision can change everything.” The project was developed by Lynn Harris of Matt Reeves’ 6th & Idaho.

Safran and DC’s co-Honcho James Gunn courted genre filmmakers to deliver what is arguably the first horror film for the DCU, and were won over by British filmmaker James Watkins who delivered a ratcheted thriller in the Blumhouse remake of Danish-Dutch film Speak No Evil starring James McAvoy. Watkins also has a knack for delivering high-end genre pics at responsible prices, read Speak No Evil was quite profitable netting $50M off a $15M production cost and $76.7M global gross. He also directed the Daniel Radcliffe $16M 2012 spooky movie, The Woman in Black, which made close to $129M worldwide. As such, with Clayface, which comes at a reported cost of $40M, it’s a means for DC to make movies of different shapes and sizes, not just $100M+ superhero movies.

“We want our slate to be something for everyone –the genre fans, the Batman villain fans, but not everything has to be for everyone,” Safran tells Deadline.

In the big screen take of Clayface, Hagen is a matinee idol on the rise, but his face gets slashed by thugs. His given the saving grace to have it repaired with an injection formula.

As San Diego Comic-Con kicks off, here’s our conversation with Watkins on his Clayface:

DEADLINE: Did DC approach you for Clayface or did you approach them?

JAMES WATKINS: They came to me. They sent me the script by Mike Flanagan, which I read and thought, this is really interesting. The journey of this, the bones of this is a monster story, a story of identity, of who we are, and how we define ourselves. This is a story of a guy who had built up this career, and then it gets smashed away, and how he tried to get it back. It’s a very relatable human thing. But also sort of mythic, almost going back to classic storytelling, this sort of shape shifter story, and Frankenstein story of it all. I had lot of conversation with the guys at DC. They came to me, but then I sort of had to prove my proof that I had something they could work with.

DEADLINE: Did you have to go full-out slideshow and vision reel in your pitch, or were you like, ‘No, here’s my James McAvoy film.’?

WATKINS: I came on board with a whole lot of stuff that I threw at them. I’m like ‘Here’s the Gotham world, this is what I would do with it.’ It’s sort of the same conversation I had with Couper Samuelson and Jason Blum at Blumhouse when I did Speak No Evil. I’m like ‘Look, this is the place where I would go. If this is the place where you think you actually want to go, then we should all go there together. But if you don’t, there’s no point really taking me on the journey, because it’s going to be bad for all of us, right? It’s always good to go, ‘This is how I see it,’ and let them decide because it’s their property. I remember having this conversation on zoom and showing all sorts of really icky imagery and James Gunn looked away at one point, because he was so grossed out. But he was also like, ‘Yeah!’.

DEADLINE: Flanagan’s screenplay I understand was inspired by The Batman Animated Series episode “Feat of Clay” which tells the origin stories of Matt Hagen, but did you go full-on Clayface in your prep? Did you submerge yourself in the Alan Moore story, and everything? What did you pull from?

WATKINS: Everything, the Basil Karlo, Matt Hagen and all the variations. There’s a lot of inspirations from a lot of the various comics. For fans who want to do a deep dive, there are a lot of references. For me, I wanted to dig into the emotion of the character in a deeper way. What I really responded to in all the previous iterations was the sadness, the melancholy, the heartbreak, and give it a tragic dimension, trying to find that journey about Hagen being rejected and trying to find his way. The duality of Clayface is really interesting, he’s antihero but not wholly a villain.

DEADLINE: We’ve seen Gothan several times before, but what did you want your Gotham to be?

WATKINS: I wanted it to feel real. So, we shot on the streets of Liverpool. When I look back at films I really admire, like Croenenberg’s The Fly, they take a guy who turns into a fly. It’s impossible, but it creates a truth and a believability and proudness to it immediately. I wanted that. When I look at Gotham, James Gunn, (production designer) James Price and (DP) Rob Hardy and I looked at a lot of street photography from New York in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. You realize the palette of it, not just the Kodachrome, but the life, the texture, the costumes, the colors. And the city has a certain sort of corruption to it. Rob doesn’t use LEDs in a way that other people do. We wanted this kind of doomy romantic (look). He can shoot digital and make it look like analog. There’s a lot of sodium, dirty, orange light that diffuses and plays through the whole film and creates a rich atmosphere.

DEADLINE: The trailer has a Brian De Palma feel to it. Was that intentional?

WATKINS: There is one moment –I mean, we are what we eat, and I love De Palma– but there is one moment which you will certainly note, which is very much De Palma and a reference to Carlito’s Way. We talked a lot about De Palma, Rob and I, the way he moves the camera is always motivated and economical. There’s a brutality to it.

DEADLINE: We recently had The Substance, an award-winning body swap film, and Todd Phillips’ R-rated Joker. When it comes to making a R-rated comic book movies and a body swap film, did you feel that the bar was so high, that it’s hard to succeed? Did you feel pressure?

WATKINS: Those are both great films, but this is a very different story and a very different universe. It creates its own atmosphere, it creates its own vibe, and the story of Matt Hagen is its own story and I think it’s a compelling one and it takes people on a real roller coaster journey. It’s going to give people a lot of ick and a lot of gore. But there’s also an emotional core that gives it a dimension. When you sit and watch this, and you feel the anima of an audience responding to the film, there’s some comfort in that, I suppose.

DEADLINE: How many production days did you shoot?

WATKINS: Nine to ten weeks.

DEADLINE: Are you done editing yet?

WATKINS: Yeah.

DEADLINE: How did Tom Rhys Harries become your Clayface? What did you see him in?

WATKINS: We saw so many people and Lucy Bevan is a fantastic casting director. But Tom came in and I didn’t know his work at all, but he just gave a really interesting read. I probably put him through about four more auditions, including reading against people. There’s something slightly Clayface about Tom’w face. Clayface is a shapeshifter and I had this with James McAvoy who is a master actor, and can just shift with such a sort of microscopic gradation between being cheeky and devilish. And those sorts of shifts I felt within Tom, between being this kind of urchin, orphan quality of vulnerability that sometimes you can play, but also by a shift a manic smile that can become slightly unnerving and could do all of that within a register of keeping it real. He just felt like Matt Hagan, and when you sort of have that, it’s very hard to get beyond it.

Warner Bros and DC’s Clayface comes out on Oct. 23.