Did Tom Holland put Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?

Did Tom Holland put Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?

There's a lot we still don't know for sure about Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Is Sadie Sink playing Jean Grey? (Probably.) Does Peter Parker grow extra arms and transform into an actual Spider? (Doubtful.) Will Miles Morales show up? (Not quite yet.) But one thing seems clear: Tom Holland had a lot of creative control over the direction of this movie.

Holland, who's been playing Spider-Man for a full decade, seemingly arrived on the set of Brand New Day with a bolstered sense of ownership over the franchise. Armed with the lessons he learned from working with Christopher Nolan on The Odyssey, and emboldened by a new and better contract, the actor pushed Sony and Marvel to level-up the movie in various ways, from reworking the script when it needed some polishing to finally giving fans the street-level Spidey they've been asking for.

However, it turns out we still don't know Holland's most significant impact on Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

"It is still to this day the biggest mystery of what this movie is and what it's about," Holland tells Polygon when asked which villain or minor character he was most excited to add to the script.

"I sat down with a very good friend of mine and my brother, and we were pitching ideas back and forth. This idea came up — and I cannot talk about it because it is still a huge mystery," he continues. "For me, bringing that kernel of an idea to the writer's room was very exciting."

Holland is clearly proud of the idea he brought to Brand New Day, and the fact that he has to be so secretive about it makes me think I may know what he's talking about. After all, there's no question that the biggest mystery surrounding this movie is the identity of Sadie Sink's character. The actress even recorded a video teasing the secrecy around the role.

At this point, everyone pretty much assumes that Sink is playing Jean Grey, the powerful psychic mutant best-known for her role in the X-Men franchise. And the first 30 minutes of footage that Polygon previewed ahead of these interviews does seem to confirm a mysterious villain with psychic powers is at the heart of Brand New Day's story (although we didn't learn who that villain actually is, and Sink didn't even show up in the footage we saw).

Still, based on the evidence that we have, it kind of seems like Holland may have come up with the idea of putting Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. (Unless his big idea was to have Peter Parker transform into an actual mutant Man-Spider.) Of course, Sink couldn't comment on any of this herself, but when asked about Holland's role in crafting the movie, she praised his deep passion for the title character.

"He cared so much about what the fans thought and what they wanted," Sink tells Polygon. "For someone who knows the character of Peter Parker so well, it's nice that he was able to kind of be involved in the process."

Sink also revealed that the secrecy around Brand New Day was so high that she wasn't even given a script until she arrived on set, although she knew what role she was auditioning for early on.

"I knew the character and the general premise of the film, but I didn't get a script before like getting to London pretty much to film," she says. "So yeah, very top secret, but kind of exciting to be joining the universe in this way. And I don't know. It's cool to have secrets, I guess."

For now, despite our best efforts, those secrets will stay secret. But if Sadie Sink does turn out to be playing Jean Grey, you can probably thank Tom Holland himself for coming up with the idea of putting the iconic mutant superhero into the movie.

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Spider-Man: Brand New Day releases in theaters on July 31.